The relationship between China and Russia, which have been undergoing healthy and steady development in the past years, is a model of good-neighborly friendship in the international community.

The China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership has been strengthened in recent years as exchanges in various sectors, including politics, economy, trade and culture, continue to expand.

The two neighbors established the strategic partnership of cooperation in 1996, a move seen as a landmark in bilateral relations.

Five years later, China and Russia signed a treaty on good-neighborliness, friendship and cooperation, laying a solid legal foundation for the development of bilateral ties.

In particular, the two resolved historic border disputes and their 4,300-km-long border has become a bond of good-neighborly friendship, harmonious coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who visited Russia in the past five days, said Tuesday Sino-Russian relations had become the most important, vigorous and richest ties between the two countries, and that the relationship had always been a priority of China's foreign policy.

Bilateral economic and trade cooperation has also achieved fruitful achievements.

In the past decade, bilateral trade volume increased by more than sevenfold.

China has been Russia's biggest trading partner since February last year. Sino-Russian trade reached its peak in 2008, with trade volume hitting a record 58.8 billion U.S. dollars.

Although dragged down by the global economic downturn in 2009, bilateral trade volume surged 67.9 percent on an annual basis in the first two months of 2010, bringing it close to the pre-crisis level.

Amid intensive exchanges in the fields of politics and trade, the two countries also launched a series of activities to boost culture exchanges in recent years.

The Year of Chinese Language in Russia was launched Tuesday in Moscow, attended by Vice President Xi and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The language year in Russia follows the Year of Russian Language in China last year.

Before that, reciprocal national theme years proposed by the two heads of state were staged in 2006 and 2007, embodying the intimacy of the bilateral ties and the high level and specificity of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership of cooperation.

China-Russia relations are widely regarded experiencing the best time in history and certainly have a bright future.