Hanoi (VNA) –Vietnam and China held their seventh defence strategy dialogue at the deputyministerial level in Dongxing city in the Chinese province of Guangxi on April23.

The dialogue was co-chairedby Vietnamese Deputy Minister of National Defence Sen. Lt. Gen. Hoang XuanChien and Lt. Gen. Shao Yuanming, Deputy Chief of the JointStaff Department of the Central Military Commission of China. The Vietnamese delegationalso saw the participation of Deputy Minister of National Defence Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen ChiVinh.

During the dialogue, thetwo sides exchanged views on the world and regional situation and issues ofmutual concern.

They held that Asia-Pacifichas become an intersection point of interests and competition for influence amongbig countries both in and outside the region.

The emergence ofnon-traditional issues such as pandemics, the environment, natural disasters, extremenationalism, terrorism and transnational crime have deeply affectedpeace, stability and development of nations, they said, adding thatinternational cooperation in coping with the common challenges has become anessential need.

In that context, togetherwith partners outside the region, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) has made important contributions to peace and stability in the region.Cooperation mechanisms led by ASEAN, especially the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ MeetingPlus (ADMM ), has increasingly upheld its efficiency, reflected by the fact thatan growing number of partners outside the ASEAN region want to join themechanism.

Both sides agreed thatdefence cooperation between Vietnam and China has been continuously expandedand conducted via various forms, focusing on different fields such as the exchangeof delegations, training, military medicine, UN peacekeeping, and the exchange ofexperience in Party and political work in the army.

They also highly evaluatedcooperative ties between border guard forces of the two countries, especiallyin the management and protection of borderlines, fight against crime andmaintenance of security and order in border areas.

The two sides also frankly discussed sea-related issues. Chien said that as the East Sea is the lifeblood sea routeof the world, which has not only strategic economic, trade and defence-security values but also geographic strategic values, countries involved shouldactively cooperate with each other and maintain peace and stability in order to bring common interests.

Vietnam’s consistent stance is to address disputes at seathrough peaceful measures, in the spirit of common perceptions reached by the twocountries’ senior leaders, and with respect to each other’s legitimate rightsand interests, on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 UnitedNations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); to implement the Declaration on theConduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) fully and effectively, working toreach a practical and effective Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC); and to wellcontrol disagreements at sea to avoid complicating the situation and usingforce or threatening to use force, he stressed.

Regarding cooperation orientations in the coming time, bothsides agreed to maintain the effective implementation of signed cooperationagreements, especially the statement on joint vision on defence cooperationuntil 2025 between the two defence ministries, continue seriously implementingthree legal documents on the border between the two countries, and closelycooperate in management and control of illegal immigration and border crossing,closely coordinate in the fight against all kinds of crime, and maintainsecurity and order in border areas.

Earlier, Vietnamese Deputy Ministers of National Defence Sen. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh and Sen. Lt. Gen. HoangXuan Chien had a meeting with Sen. Lt. Gen. Qi Jianguo, former DeputyChief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission and Lt. Gen. Shao Yuanming.

They all expressed their delight at the development indefence cooperation between Vietnam and China, in which the two countries’border defence friendship exchanges have contributed to managing, protecting andbuilding the shared borderline of peace, stability and development./.