Jiang, chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remark while meeting with Nong Duc Manh, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee in Beijing.

Jiang said Manh's ongoing visit, the fourth trip to China, would contribute to the advancement of China-Vietnamese relations in a comprehensive manner, expressing his satisfaction over the current status of fine bilateral relations.

Jiang said that China and Vietnam, socialist countries, were building socialism with their own specific characteristics. The Communist parties and governments of the two countries attached strategic importance to the development of bilateral ties from a strategic perspective.

He said China and Vietnam were neighbors who had forged a deep friendship during their long struggles for national liberation and the construction of their countries. All of these factors had laid a solid foundation and created great potential for the further development of bilateral ties.

Jiang expressed his wish that Vietnam would made new achievements in its renovation and opening-up process.

Manh congratulated Jiang on his re-election as CMC chairman, noting that Jiang was an "old friend" of the Vietnamese people.

He said Jiang had left a deep impression on the Vietnamese people with his dedication to the normalization of bilateral relations and to the comprehensive development of relations between the two Communist parties and governments in the new century.

Manh said links between the CPV and the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the two nations were developing smoothly. It was the common will of the CPV and the Vietnamese government that the two countries would remain good neighbors, good friends, good comrades and good partners forever, Manh said.

He said his current visit was aimed at implementing the consensus reached by the top leaders of the two countries in order to take the good-neighborly bilateral relationship of cooperation to a new level.

(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2003)