Depth report

　　

This year marks the second year of a comprehensive strategic partnership between China and ASEAN. It also marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China and the concept of building an even closer China-Asean community of shared future.

The 43rd ASEAN Summit, which opened on September 5, focuses on multilateral economic cooperation under the theme "ASEAN Matters: Building a Hub for Economic Growth." In this context, what new outcomes will be achieved under the "10+1" and "10+3" frameworks in which China participates? How will the Belt and Road Initiative better align with ASEAN's long-term vision? What new cooperation will the two sides have in green economy, digital economy, scientific and technological innovation and other fields?

The international community hopes that China and ASEAN will continue to uphold genuine multilateralism, further promote common development, consolidate public support, advance regional economic integration, and inject lasting warm currents into world economic prosperity and recovery.

Share more development dividends

Although ASEAN faces long-term bottlenecks such as inadequate infrastructure investment and lagging regional connectivity, it is playing an increasingly important role in the regional economy and even the global economy through enhanced cooperation with China. In recent years, China and ASEAN have jointly talked about development, sought business opportunities and shared opportunities, further broken development bottlenecks and released development momentum, and deepened cooperation in various fields has yielded fruitful results, enabling China and ASEAN to share more and more development dividends with each other.

First, jointly increase the scale of trade. China and ASEAN have been each other's largest trading partner for three consecutive years and continued to be each other's largest trading partner in the first seven months of this year. Data show that the total value of trade between China and ASEAN from January to July this year was 3.59 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.8 percent year-on-year. In recent years, under the framework of the "Belt and Road" cooperation, the two sides have continuously promoted trade connectivity, improved trade facilitation, and deepened international cooperation on "Silk Road e-commerce". With the entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world's largest free trade area has officially set sail, further unleashing the potential of trade cooperation.

Second, we need to jointly promote two-way investment. China and ASEAN are each other's important investment sources and destinations. As of July this year, the cumulative two-way investment between China and ASEAN countries has exceeded US $380 billion, and over 6,500 Chinese enterprises with direct investment in ASEAN have been established. Relying on the "Two countries and two Parks", the two sides will jointly build demonstration parks for economic and trade innovation and development, promote cross-border industrial chain cooperation that meets the development needs of their respective countries, promote investment cooperation in digital economy and green development, and open up a new channel for ASEAN countries to integrate into China's local opening up and development.

Finally, we need to work together to promote connectivity. The Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville Expressway reduces the travel time between the two places to less than 2 hours, pushing Cambodia into the "high-speed era"; China and Singapore have jointly built a new international land and sea trade corridor, covering 393 ports in 119 countries and regions. Indonesia's Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail is about to open... A series of landmark projects are playing an exemplary role in further promoting technology sharing and experience exchange between China and ASEAN, so that bilateral connectivity cooperation will benefit more local people.

Through long-term close cooperation, China and ASEAN have continuously promoted the complementarity of advantageous resources, optimized regional industrial allocation, and promoted the deep integration of industries. This has not only pushed relevant countries to a higher level of economic and trade cooperation, but also effectively promoted the stability and smooth flow of global industrial and supply chains and the steady recovery of the global economy, providing opportunities for regional economic development to further integrate with the world. It has laid a solid foundation for ASEAN's goal of becoming an "economic growth center".

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsuti spoke highly of the cooperation between China and ASEAN, hoping to continue to strengthen economic and trade cooperation with China and jointly safeguard peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. Li Xingyu, executive director of the Social and Economic Research Center of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Malaysia, said that he expects China to continue to expand its opening-up, share prosperity with other countries, and help the steady recovery of Southeast Asia and even the world economy.

Deepen comprehensive strategic partnership

Looking back on the development of China-Asean relations over the past 30 years, whenever regional or global crises have occurred, the momentum of cooperation between the two sides has become stronger and political mutual trust has steadily increased. In the face of profound changes unseen in a century, it is the shared aspiration of both sides to make the "pie" of China-Asean win-win cooperation bigger, deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership and build an even closer China-Asean community of shared future.

The international community generally believes that the summit will focus on economic development, and most of the topics, such as green economy, digital economy and payment ecosystem, are closely related to China. It will be a new opportunity for the two sides to accelerate the building of a community of common destiny, deepen the synergy of development strategies, explore new areas of cooperation, and jointly promote regional prosperity and development.

"In the 10 years since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed, the 'hard connectivity' of traditional infrastructure construction between China and ASEAN has made important progress, and the cooperation such as RCEP has also promoted the 'soft connectivity' of rules and standards. On this basis, industrialization and production capacity cooperation will become the focus of the Belt and Road cooperation between China and ASEAN in the future." Wan Zhe, a researcher at the Belt and Road College of Beijing Normal University, said that China and ASEAN countries have converging development stages, compatible ideas, complementary economic structures, and broad space for industrialization cooperation. They can not only strengthen cooperation in some high-tech industries, but also promote more projects that promote inclusive development and improve people's well-being, so that people on both sides have a stronger sense of gain and happiness. Jointly build a "heart connection" between the people of China and ASEAN countries.

In the field of new industrialization, the development of digital economy and green economy industry is the biggest highlight, and it is also the focus of this summit. Wan Zhe said that in the field of digital economy industry, China will give play to the advantages of digital economy application experience, 5G infrastructure construction technology, artificial intelligence application foundation, and deepen cooperation with ASEAN in data security, smart city and other fields. In the field of green economy industries, China and ASEAN will strengthen cooperation in the development and application of new energy technologies, green investment and financing, green infrastructure construction, and jointly promote green economic transformation and sustainable growth and development.

Zhang Jie said that 2024 has been designated as the "China-Asean Year of People-to-people and Cultural Exchanges", and this summit will also help implement the "Global Civilization Initiative", help restore personnel exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations, carry out exchanges and cooperation in culture, tourism, education and other fields, so that people of both sides can better know each other, meet each other and integrate, and contribute more to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

We will share development opportunities through multilateral cooperation and jointly create potential for global economic growth. At present, China is promoting Chinese-style modernization with high-quality development, which will provide new development opportunities for ASEAN countries and let the world see the development potential and infinite vitality of regional economic cooperation. It is believed that China and ASEAN will continue to work hand in hand with the international community to make strides toward their respective development goals and create a better future together.