China, ASEAN to further enhance cooperation, exchanges

VIENTIANE -- ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers' Meeting was held Friday here, with both sides hailing fruitful results in bilateral cooperation while vowing further efforts to enhance economic and trade cooperation and people-to-people exchanges.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-hosted the meeting in the capital of Laos, which is the current rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

During the meeting, Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, noted China and ASEAN, who are friendly neighbors and close partners, have seen the building of a China-ASEAN community with a shared future being steady and fruitful, benefiting 2 billion people on the two sides while greatly promoting common development.

The cooperation featured increasingly closer economic and trade links, fast recovery of people-to-people and cultural exchanges, deepened connectivity and new growth drivers continuously put in place, Wang said.

The Chinese-style modernization supported by China's further reforms ahead promises an even broader and brighter prospect, providing new opportunities to ASEAN and other countries around the world, Wang noted.

China's modernization efforts, catalyzed by new quality productive forces, with more and more potential of the huge Chinese market unleashed, and the upward trend in economy sustained, will continuously inject impetus into global and regional growth, he said.

China is willing to share with ASEAN countries the opportunities brought about by its development, supporting them in finding their own successful modernization path suiting their respective national conditions, and jointly pushing the modernization process of Asia.

The Chinese foreign minister hailed the 33-year China-ASEAN dialogue relations as the most fruitful and dynamic cooperation model in the Asia-Pacific region, pledging continued Chinese support for ASEAN's strategic autonomy and a stronger ASEAN-centered regional cooperation mechanism.

China fully supports Laos in fulfilling its rotating chairmanship of ASEAN, and is willing to push for higher level connectivity with ASEAN, injecting new impetus into a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future, he said.

Wang urged joint efforts to accelerate negotiations to upgrade the China-ASEAN free trade agreement, to advance integrated development of regional industrial and supply chains, to speed up the formation of competitive emerging industry clusters, to tap the potential for cooperation in emerging industries and the financial sector, and to expand the scale of settlement in local currency.

He also called for working together to make the China-ASEAN Year of People-to-People Exchanges this year a success.

Wang also elaborated on China's position on the South China Sea issue.

All parties at the meeting spoke highly of China's efforts to promote peace and stability, saying that under the current circumstances, it is of great importance to continue to adhere to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and carry forward the Bandung Spirit.

The parties said they support a series of global initiatives put forward by China, highly appreciate China's strong support for ASEAN centrality and the fruitful outcomes of practical bilateral cooperation.

Senior diplomats at the meeting said that they are encouraged by China's efforts to further deepen comprehensive reform, promote high-level opening-up and actively share development opportunities with ASEAN. They said that ASEAN looks forward to strengthening the synergy of development strategies and injecting strong impetus into a more resilient and sustainable future for ASEAN.

The foreign ministers said that ASEAN is ready to fully and efficiently leverage the effectiveness of the bilateral cooperation mechanism with China, conclude negotiations on an upgraded version of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area as soon as possible, expand all-round cooperation in such areas as economy, trade and investment, digital transformation, connectivity, clean energy and response to climate change, deepening the ASEAN-China comprehensive strategic partnership.

They expressed the hope to take the 2024 ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges as an opportunity to strengthen education, tourism and people-to-people exchanges, and promote peoples' ties.

All parties welcomed the positive progress made in the negotiations on the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea and looked forward to an early conclusion of the COC.

All parties expressed readiness to work together to safeguard regional peace and tranquility, and inject new momentum into the building of a mine-free ASEAN.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Wang met with ROK Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo.

He also met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar during his Laos tour.