As the first high-level visit after the upgrade of the Vietnam and China relations, the visit has special significance, contributing to maintaining the positive development momentum of the bilateral relations and implementing the common perception of leaders of the two Parties and two countries.
Vietnam-China relations have maintained a stable development trend and achieved many important results. High-level exchanges and contacts are held regularly. After the official visit to China by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (2022), many delegations of Vietnamese leaders visited China in 2023 to mark the 15th anniversary of the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.
During the State-level visit to Vietnam of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President Xi Jinping and his spouse (December 2023), the two countries issued a Joint Statement on continuing to deepen and elevate the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership as well as building a community with a shared future of strategic significance and signing many cooperation documents. Since the beginning of 2024, exchanges and contacts at all levels continue to take place regularly and flexibly, including Party, State and people-to-people exchanges.
Exchanges and cooperation between the Vietnamese National Assembly and the National People’s Congress of China are maintained frequently and gain many practical results. The two sides continue to effectively implement the cooperation agreement signed in 2015. After the 13th Party Congress, NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue had online talks with NPC Chairmen of the 13th and 14th tenure. In particular, the online talk with NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue (March 2023) was the first foreign activity of Chairman of the NPC of China Zhao Leji after being elected to a new position, demonstrating China’s appreciation of strengthening exchanges and cooperation between the two legislative bodies.
Cooperation in various fields, especially economics, trade and investment, also sees substantial strides. Import-export turnover between the two countries reached 171.9 billion USD in 2023. Vietnam continues to be China’s fourth largest trading partner in the world and the largest in ASEAN. China is the fourth largest investor in Vietnam, with total investment of 4.47 billion USD in 2023. Tourism cooperation has gradually recovered after the pandemic. With 1.75 million visitors to Vietnam in 2023, China ranks second among markets with tourists to Vietnam.
NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue leading a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation to pay an official visit to China is an important foreign policy activity. This is the first visit to China of NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue in his new position and the first visit of a Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly to China in the past five years. In particular, the visit is made after the upgrade of the bilateral relations, contributing to consolidating and promoting fine cooperation results and concretising high-level common perceptions in addition to deepening the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.
Not only a cooperation activity between the two legislative bodies, the visit is of special importance, being a high-level strategic exchange between the two Parties and two States. Conducted immediately after China’s Two Sessions 2024, talks and meetings between NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and key leaders of the Party, State and localities of China will be an important opportunity for the two sides to deepen exchanges at a strategic level, on major issues in the bilateral relationship, as well as on international and regional situations of mutual concern. Thereby, the activities will help further strengthen political trust, realise common perceptions between the top leaders of the two Parties and countries and promote practical cooperation, especially in economics, trade, investment, tourism and locality cooperation.
The official visit to China by National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation contributes to implementing the policy of the 13th Party Congress. It affirms that Vietnam is steadfast in pursuing its goals of national independence and socialism, foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, cooperation, development, multilateralisation, and diversification of foreign relations as well as building an independent and self-reliant economy associated with extensive and effective international integration.
At the same time, the visit asserts the Vietnamese Party and State’s top priority and appreciation for Vietnam-China relations. It affirms that Vietnam attaches great importance to the development of stable, healthy, sustainable and long-term bilateral relations. Vietnam also wishes to effectively build a community with a shared future of strategic significance and bring the bilateral relations to a new stage of development which are increasingly comprehensive, profound and sustainable.
