Battle of Dien Bien Phu remembered in Nanning

China and Vietnam face new challenges in today's volatile international situation but also enjoy new opportunities, and young people from the two countries should remember history and promote cooperation and friendship.

That was the consensus of participants at a seminar commemorating victory at the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

The seminar was held on Sunday in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

May 7 was chosen as the day to mark the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended French colonial rule in Asia and had a major impact on the strategic pattern of Asia.

At the request of Ho Chi Minh, then-chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, China sent two delegations of military and political advisers to Vietnam in 1954, helping it win the two-month-long battle.

During its war against French colonial rule, Vietnam received a great deal of Chinese aid in the way of grain, weapons and equipment from Guangxi, which served as its rear area, said Huang Zheng, former vice-president of the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences, who has made a deep study of Sino-Vietnamese relations.

Phan Huy Minh, consul of the Consulate General of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Nanning, said that the seminar renewed the brotherly friendship of both countries and enabled young people to inherit the precious legacy of the Chinese and Vietnamese people that the war for national liberation created.