After the two historic visits of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to China (October 2022) and General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping to Vietnam (December 2023), the spirit of trust and friendship has spread widely through all levels, sectors, and people of the two countries, forming a vibrant and substantive exchange and cooperation with many specific results.
The two sides maintain regular high-level strategic exchanges between the two parties and two states, consolidate political trust, and promote an important guiding role for the development of the bilateral relations. The senior leaders of the two countries affirmed the importance that the party and state of each side attach to the bilateral relationship, as well as the special role of the bilateral relationship in the foreign policy of each country.
Vietnam affirmed that consolidating and developing friendly and cooperative relations with China is an objective requirement, a strategic choice, and a top priority in Vietnam’s foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, cooperation and development, diversification, and multilateralisation. The Chinese senior leaders emphasised the importance of the relationship with Vietnam, identifying it as a priority in China’s overall neighbourly foreign policy.
On July 20, General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping visited the Vietnamese Embassy in Beijing to express condolences over the passing of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, expressing the sentiments of the Party, State and people of China as well as Xi Jinping towards the relationship between the two parties and two countries and towards the late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong personally.
The two countries’ senior leaders agreed to coordinate more closely to effectively implement the high-level common perceptions between the two sides and realise the Vietnam-China Joint Statements reached during the visits of the two General Secretaries, thereby creating new driving forces, opening new cooperation opportunities, and continuously enriching the Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership and the community with a shared future.
The two sides also agreed to continue to foster and institutionalise exchange and cooperation activities in all fields through the channels of the Party, Government, National Assembly/National People’s Congress, Fatherland Front/People’s Political Consultative Conference and in important areas such as diplomacy, security, and defence. The two countries will constantly consolidate a solid social foundation for the development of bilateral relations and strive to improve the effectiveness of friendly exchange mechanisms while properly handling disagreements and jointly maintaining a peaceful and stable environment.
As a result of the enhanced political trust, the economic, trade and investment cooperation between the two countries has continuously deepened and become more substantial. Vietnam maintains its position as China’s largest trading partner in ASEAN and China’s fifth largest trading partner in the world, while China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner.
The two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and China in 2023 reached 171.9 billion USD. In the first seven months of 2024, China was Vietnam’s second largest export market with an estimated turnover of 33.38 billion USD, up 7.2%, and continued to be Vietnam’s largest import market with an estimated turnover of 79.2 billion USD, up 34.9% over the same period last year.
In 2023, China invested 4.47 billion USD in more than 700 projects in Vietnam, up 77% and ranking fourth among countries and territories investing in Vietnam. In the first seven months of 2024, China was the leading partner in terms of the number of new investment projects in Vietnam, accounting for 29.7% of the total number of new projects in Vietnam.
