The Ministry of National Defense has officially opened direct hotlines respectively with defense ministries of Vietnam and the Republic of Korea, a ministry spokesman disclosed on Thursday.

State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Chang Wanquan held the first direct hotline talks with his Vietnamese and ROK counterparts.

China is willing to work with Vietnam to "turn high-level consensus into concrete outcomes and properly tackle differences", Chang said in his phone conversation with Vietnamese Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh.

The China-Vietnamese relations have shown "gratifying momentum of continuous improvement", as President Xi Jinping and General Secretary the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyễn Phú Trọng exchanged successful visits in 2015,Chang said.

Phung told Chang that Vietnam is willing to work with China to gain practical development of relations between the two militaries.

In his phone conversation with ROK Defense Minister Han Min-goo, Chang said China will strengthen exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and ROK militaries to "jointly maintain regional peace, stability and prosperity".