Visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin expressed hope yesterday that the younger generation of China and Viet Nam can carry on with their traditional friendship.

Addressing students at the National University of Hanoi, Jiang said that the young people of the two neighboring countries should "enhance exchanges, learn from each other and promote understanding so as to shoulder the historic responsibility of developing bilateral ties.

"The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese Government support the young people of the two countries in their friendly exchanges and hope that the momentum of such activities will be maintained and more young people will be attracted to the cause of developing Sino-Vietnamese friendship," said Jiang, who is also the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

Jiang is in Viet Nam for a three-day official goodwill visit that also includes a stop in the central Vietnamese cities of Hue and Da Nang. Ties between the two countries have been developing at a good pace in recent years, ever since the two countries repaired their frayed relations stemming from border disputes in the late 1970s.

The two countries have already settled all the disputes over their land border in a 1999 agreement. Progress has also been made regarding the delimitation of Beibu Bay and cooperation on fishery in the region. Apart from the frequent exchange of high-level visits, trade volume between China and Viet Nam has increased from US$30 million a decade ago to the current US$3 billion.

Jiang said during yesterday's speech attended by 1,000 students and broadcast live in Viet Nam that the development of bilateral ties has shown it is in the fundamental interests of the two countries to enhance their unity, promote mutual understanding, develop friendship, expand cooperation and seek common development and prosperity.

He highlighted the guidelines of developing a long-term neighborly relationship with comprehensive cooperation, stressing that mutual trust is the premise for the relationship.

Jiang, who later wrote the words on the university's visitor's book "carry on with Sino-Vietnamese friendship from generation to generation," assured his audience that China will continue to pursue harmonious and reciprocal cooperation with its neighbors as well as other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence.

"This is our unswerving policy," Jiang said.

(China Daily March 1, 2002)