Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated that his government aspires to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership between Beijing and ASEAN nations.
ASEAN – Association of Southeast Asian Nations – is an economic union comprising ten member states in Southeast Asia. It was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand with an aim of “promoting intergovernmental cooperation” and facilitating economic, political, security, military, educational, and sociocultural integration between its members and other countries in Asia. It includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Though India is not a member of this alliance, however, in 2009, it signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the ASEAN members in Thailand.
President Jinping called the virtual summit – a new milestone in the relations between the two sides – and added that he believes this would inject fresh impetus into regional and world peace, stability and development.
Notably, Jinping’s announcement came when he was chairing a Special Summit to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations virtually on Monday morning. During his speech, Xi reaffirmed that China would take the association and its members on top priority and added he would like to play a bigger role in “promoting peace and security”.
While elaborating Xi’s vision about the association, he proposed “five golden points” for the betterment of China as well as countries associated with the organisation.
According to Xi, those points include: building a peaceful, safe and secure home together, building a prosperous home together, building a beautiful home together, and building an amicable home together. “Peace is our greatest common interest and the greatest common aspiration of people in all countries. We need to serve as the builders and guardians of peace in the region. We need to pursue dialogue instead of confrontation, build partnerships instead of alliances,” he stated.
Xi stated that “We will implement in earnest our comprehensive strategic partership, and make new strides toward building a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future”
“China firmly opposes hegemonism and power politics. China will never seek hegemony, still less bully smaller countries,” he added.
Further, he pledged to donate an additional 150 million doses of COVID vaccines to ASEAN countries to support higher vaccination rates in countries in the region. China will provide an additional $5 million to the COVID-19 ASEAN Response Fund, step up vaccine joint production and technology transfer, and collaborate on the R&D of essential medicines, so as to help ASEAN increase its self-reliance.
