China and Vietnam will hold an unveiling ceremony for a new marker
stone on the boundary between Hekou in southwest China's Yunnan
Province and Lao Cai in Vietnam on July 13.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regular press
conference in Beijing Thursday that Wang Yi, vice-foreign minister
and head of the Chinese government delegation for border
negotiations with Vietnam and his Vietnamese counterpart Le Cong
Phung would attend the ceremony.
This would be the second major event after the unveiling ceremony
for a marker stone on the Guangxi section of the Sino-Vietnamese
border last December under the border treaty signed by the Joint
Committee on Border Surveying Between China and Vietnam in December
1999, Liu said.
It
signified yet another concrete step taken in border surveying
between China and Vietnam and would help advance the program's
overall progress, Liu said. It would be also of positive and
practical significance for maintaining peace and stability in the
border areas and promoting economic development and personnel
exchanges between the two countries.
China and Vietnam were linked by mountains and water and had close
ties, Liu said. At present, bilateral relations maintained sound
progress, with widening exchanges and cooperation in various
fields.
The Communist Party and state leaders of the two countries had kept
in close contact, playing vital roles in the extensive development
of bilateral ties.
Liu said that the general secretaries of the Communist Party
central committees of both countries had exchanged visits since the
end of last year. They exchanged views on further progress in
wide-ranging bilateral ties in the new century, reached a broad
consensus and boosted mutual trust, friendship and cooperation.
Noting that the two countries had similar domestic conditions, Liu
said both followed the leadership of the Communist Party and the
socialist path as they engaged in reform and opening-up to the
outside world and economic development.
China hoped that the friendly cooperation between the two countries
would grow on the basis of the five principles of peaceful
co-existence, Liu said.
(Xinhua News
Agency July 12, 2002)