President Hu Jintao wrapped up a three-day visit to Viet Nam yesterday, following his trip to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) last week. While demonstrating China's efforts to strengthen friendly relations with its neighbors, Hu's visits sent a clear message that Beijing is committed to regional peace, stability and prosperity.

During his visits, Hu held in-depth talks with top leaders of the two nations and reached agreements on pushing forward the all-round development of bilateral friendship and co-operation. Such high-level exchanges will undoubtedly help China promote mutual trust and reciprocal co-operation with these two close neighbors.

The president also offered specific proposals for the development of trade and political relations with Viet Nam and the DPRK, and signed deals on bilateral economic-technical co-operation with the two countries. That clearly showed Beijing's sincerity to preserve and carry forward traditional Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-DPRK friendship in a contemporary setting.

The importance attached by Beijing to developing comprehensive and sustainable ties with its neighbors suggests China's strategy to create a peaceful environment for its development as well as its efforts to sharpen its image as a responsible power.

As China and its neighbors share many common strategic interests, the country has felt the weight of its responsibility to ensure regional peace, stability and development through its own growing influence.

China has long been pursuing a foreign policy of good neighborliness and friendship with all of its neighboring countries. Its fast development, however, has unavoidably fuelled worries in certain countries about their giant neighbor, especially given the Western media's fabrication of the threat allegedly posed by China's military and economy to other nations.

The worries have made it a challenge for Beijing to state its good intentions and reassure its neighbors that they have nothing to fear from a stronger China. As Hu said in his speech at the Vietnamese parliament: "China's development poses an obstacle to no one and undermines no one. On the contrary, it benefits global peace, stability and prosperity."

The country has actually taken concrete steps to honor its pledges. As host of the six-party talks, China has contributed a lot to resolving the nuclear stand-off on the Korean Peninsula through peaceful means and dialogues. Beijing's diplomatic efforts have won praise from the other parties concerned, including the DPRK and the United States.

As the latest move to safeguard regional stability and development, China's biggest offshore oil and gas producer, China National Offshore Oil Corp, signed on Monday a framework agreement with a Vietnamese oil firm to jointly explore oil and gas in the Beibu Bay. The deal - clinched on the principle of "putting aside disputes and jointly developing resources" - has been hailed as a good example of solving cross-border disputes in the South China Sea area.

Beijing is proving its commitment to regional peace and security in Asia, to which Hu said China's development is tied. The Chinese president vowed that with Asian countries, China foresees reaching an understanding in the political sphere, mutually profitable co-operation in the economic sphere and trust and co-operation in security matters.

As long as Asian nations stick together and make efforts to strengthen co-operation, they will surely enjoy peace, stability and common development side by side with a more prosperous China.

(China Daily November 3, 2005)