Neighborhood visits to share friendship fruits

Chinese President Xi and Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam's Communist Party chief, address young people from both countries in Beijing, April 4, 2015. [Photo by Wu Zhiyi / China Daily]

Top leader Xi Jinping's current two-nation tour to Southeast Asia, which takes him to Vietnam and Singapore, sends a strong message that China attaches great importance to developing good relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Xi's visit to Vietnam, his first as president of China and top Party leader, marks Beijing's latest diplomatic efforts to inject new vitality into healthy and stable ties with Hanoi. As the two countries share similar political systems and development paths, Xi's talks with Vietnamese leaders have strengthened their commitment to forging "comradely and brotherly" friendship.

China is also looking to link its global economic cooperation initiatives with Vietnam's own development strategy, so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples. The cooperation agreements inked by the two sides cover such areas as political interaction, infrastructure, trade, investment, and people-to-people exchanges.

Against the backdrop of the two countries' territorial dispute in the South China Sea, Xi's visit can shore up trust and expand practical cooperation, which will help Beijing and Hanoi properly handle their differences.

As to President Xi's visit to Singapore, which is a reciprocal visit to Singaporean President Tony Tan Keng Yam's trip to China earlier this year, it will yield far-reaching benefits for bilateral cooperation, which has over the years served as a good example for China's relations with Southeast Asian nations.

China and Singapore are also expected to sign a series of agreements during the visit, including the official announcement of the location of the highly anticipated third government-to-government project in China, which is poised to become an exemplary part of China's new "Silk Road" initiative that will connect China's development with Asia, Africa and Europe.

As Singapore took the rotating seat as coordinator between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in August, China is looking to cooperate with Singapore on a wide range of issues of regional significance.

And China's efforts to cement friendship and good-neighborliness with Vietnam and Singapore will have a positive bearing on its ties with ASEAN.

Xi's ongoing visit to Southeast Asia strikes a strong note in China's peripheral diplomacy, which has always had an important role in China's interaction with the outside world. It is beyond doubt that China will honor with concrete deeds its solemn pledge of building a community of common destiny with all ASEAN countries.