Lang Son is a border province and the Northern gateway of the country with a position of comprehensively strategic importance. Comprehending that, over the past years, the all-level party committee and authorities within the province have paid due attention to leading and directing the border defence work, building a border of peace, friendship, stability and development, maintaining national border sovereignty and security.
Lang Son province shares a 231-km-long border line with China which accounts for 15.9% of the total length of the border line between Vietnam and China, being the first point of Vietnam in the two economic corridors, namely Nanning (China) - Lang Son – Hanoi - Hai Phong, and Lang Son – Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh city - Moc Bai (part of the Nanning - Singapore corridor), holding a position of strategic importance to national economy, defence, security and diplomacy. Trade and international business activities are very eventful in the province’s border area. However, in this area, hostile forces’ sabotage activities, crime of all types, and factors destabilizing political security and social order are rather complex. Perceiving that, the all-level party committees and authorities within the province have attached importance to building a strong border comprehensively and especially leading and directing the border defence work, thereby safeguarding national border security.
To well carry out this important work, the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee have always grasped the Party’s resolutions and directives as well as the State’s law and policy while staying close to the situation in the border area to formulate the guidelines and measures to lead and direct the process. Grounded on the Resolution of the Provincial Party Congress (16th tenure) and the Politburo’s Resolution 16-NQ/TW, dated October 10th 2017, on boosting land border communes’ socio-economic development in line with strengthening defence, security and diplomacy, the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board issued the Decision 80-KL/TU, dated October 17th 2016 on continuing to implement its Resolution 34-NQ/TU, dated December 22nd 2011, on building a comprehensively strong border in the 2016-2020 period as well as the Action Program to execute the Politburo’s Resolution 16-NQ/TW. At the same time, it has directed the all-level party committees and authorities, particularly those of border districts to closely cooperate with the Provincial Border Guard (PBG) Command in disseminating and implementing the Party and the State’s resolutions and directives on building and defending the national border sovereignty and security. Focuses have been placed on the Project entitled “enhancing legal dissemination and education for cadres and locals in the border area between 2016 and 2020”, the National Border Law, 3 documents on the border, the Agreement on border management regulations, the Agreement on the border gates and the Regulations on the management of land border gates between Vietnam and China. Thus, the awareness and responsibility of all-level party committees and authorities and the people in the border area towards national border sovereignty have been raised as the basis for building a firm posture of “people’s hearts and minds” in the frontier area of the Homeland.
To promote the synergy of the whole political system and people in performing the border defence work to directly contribute to managing and protecting border sovereignty and security and building a border of peace, friendship, cooperation and development, the province has directed the PBG to actively take part in building and consolidating political bases and organize activities of the All-people Border Defence Day, thereby contributing to building the all-people border defence and a firm posture of all-people border defence associated with the postures of all-people national defence and people’s security. At the same time, it has focused on improving the leadership and combativeness of grass-roots party organizations, cadres and party members as well as the authorities’ capability in management and operation, promoting the role of the Fatherland Fronts and local politico-social organizations. Over the past years, the province has directed the coordination between the party committees of 5 border districts and the PBG Party Committee as well as the party committees of border communes and those of border posts on dispatching border guard cadres to border communes. Besides, the PBG has taken proper measures to step up the movement of the masses’ participation in self-managing and self-protecting the border line and markers as well as in maintaining hamlets and villages’ security, while assigning lands, forests, and border sections and markers to border households, villages and hamlets. Up to now, it has assigned all border segments and markers to border villages, hamlets and households for management and protection and established hundreds of teams of security self-management in border villages and hamlets. Moreover, the province has directed border districts and the PBG to improve the quality of people-to-people exchange and border defence diplomacy and build friendship relations with Chinese border authorities and people. Under the province’s direction, those districts twinned 9 clusters of residential areas and 2 pairs of communes with one another along the border, maintained the order for corresponding meetings and exchange programs between authorities and forces of Lang Son province and Guangxi province (China) as well as for meetings in the border area, joint patrols, political exchange programs, and twining activities intended for border guard posts and stations. At the same time, a hotline between the PBG and China’s border defence forces has been set up. As a result, the agreements, mechanisms and regulations for coordination have been well maintained while the issues arising from the border area have been effectively settled in order to facilitate the socio-economic development.
In addition, the province has always attached importance to promoting the core role of the PBG in proposing the guidelines and strategies for border management and protection and maintaining cooperation with local party committees and authorities and relevant forces, particularly the public security, the customs, and the military in taking specialized measures to grasp and forecast the situation, prevent and fight crime of all types, social evils, smuggling, and trade frauds. Promoting the combined strength of forces, over the past 10 years, the PBG has arrested 243 cases involving 320 people who trafficked in and transported over 33.918 kilograms of heroin and 63.753 kilograms of meth, destroyed and uprooted 8.925 poppies, arrested 38 cases involving 49 people who trafficked in persons, rescued 52 victims, arrested and settled 2,243 cases of smuggling worth over 73 billion VND. The PBG and competent forces of Lang Son province detected and dealt with thousands of violations of the Agreement on the Border Management Regulations, significantly contributing to safeguarding the national border sovereignty and security and social order in the province’s border area.
To provide the basis for well carrying out the border defence work and defending the border sovereignty and security, the province has focused on combining socio-economic development with defence-security consolidation in the border area. Accordingly, the province has directed committees, sectors and localities to tap resources and effectively exploit the potential and strengths of the border area, with emphasis placed on building border gate economic zones, border belt roads, roads to the border markers, and public works in order to facilitate the people’s life in the border area. Up to now, all border communes and townships have built roads for vehicles all year round; 70% of villages and hamlets have built small motor roads; 99% of households have accessed the national electricity network while 95% of households have used clean water; 21 border communes and townships have fulfiled the program for popularizing lower secondary education. The province has made investments in building essential facilities of the border gate economic zones, completed mechanisms and policies for stepping up administrative reform, improved the service attitude of competent forces, facilitated export, import, trade, services, and tourism (2,700 enterprises across the country frequently export and import goods via the province’s border gates with about 1,500 vehicles per day). The total export-import revenue via the border gates in the province’s area in 2018 was estimated at about 4,080 million USD. Furthermore, the province has implemented many programs/projects for assisting production and ensuring social welfare, while creating a favourable condition for the people to develop the household economy and settle down in the border area. Since 2011, the province has assigned over 2,100 hectares of forest land of all types to each household and executed the afforestation projects along the border; the average income from forestry has reached 50-200 million VND/household/year.
In addition to those above-mentioned measures, the province has attached great value to making the armed forces, particularly the PBG comprehensively strong and capable of playing the core role in managing and protecting the national border sovereignty and security. The Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee have closely cooperated with the Border Guard Party Committee and High Command in building strong PBG politically, ideologically, and organizationally; allocated lands for building border posts and stations and defensive works. At the same time, the province has directed the public security, military and border guard forces to effectively execute the Government’s Decree 77/2010/NĐ-CP in order to achieve the synergy to manage and defend the border, maintain security and social order, protect the Party, the authorities, and the people in the border area.
Bringing into play the attained results, particularly the lessons drawn from the 20-year implementation of the Ordinance on the Border Guard Force and the 10-year organization of the “All-People Border Defence Day”, the Party Committee, authorities, armed forces and people of Lang Son province will continue grasping and realizing the Party and State’s guidelines on building and protecting the national border sovereignty and security, enhancing the border defence work, and making the all-people border defence, the posture of all-people border defence and the border area strong comprehensively. The province will continue to effectively implement the Politburo’s Resolution 16-NQ/TW, build a border of peace, friendship, cooperation and development between Vietnam and China, and build strong PBG as the core in managing and safeguarding the national territorial sovereignty and border security, maintaining peace and stability for Lang Son’s rapid, sustainable development, making contributions to the whole country’s fulfilment of the Homeland construction and protection task in the new situation.
Pham Ngoc Thuong, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee
Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee