JAKARTA: Chinese Premier Li Qiang said at the 26th China-ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia Wednesday that as long as China and ASEAN countries keep to the right path, whatever storms may come, their cooperation will be as firm as ever and they can press ahead against all odds, and analysts said that China-ASEAN ties remain close and will continue to develop to withstand the impacts of any external interference that attempts to instigate tensions and conflicts.
Li said that China-ASEAN cooperation has come a long way thanks to their keen understanding about hardships. “China and ASEAN countries have been committed to the unwavering pursuit of peace with a strong aspiration for development, and both take real actions to safeguard regional stability,” he said at the summit, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.
The Chinese premier also said that China and ASEAN countries have properly handled disagreements by seeking common ground while shelving differences through dialogue and consultation.
“The two sides have been deepening practical cooperation in the traditional and non-traditional security fields, and have upheld the five principles of peaceful co-existence and the purpose of the TAC (Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia),” Li remarked.
Xu Liping, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday that “facing rising turbulence among the international community and the challenge of reverse globalization, China continues its attendance at the multilateral event held by ASEAN and chaired by Indonesia, where it presents China’s solutions to global challenges with sincerity despite interruptions brought by external forces. These have shaped an image of China as a responsible major power.”
The US is making great efforts to use disputes among regional countries on the South China Sea issue to instigate new tensions, interrupting the stability and development of the region to ruin the process of negotiation, experts said. These acts are not welcomed by the majority of ASEAN members, and with more pragmatic cooperation and dialogues with China, ASEAN is able to maintain peace and stability for the region to withstand external interruptions, they noted.
For ASEAN, the key is to see whether China or the US is sincere in its support of ASEAN’s centrality in the region, Xu said. “While it openly expresses support, the US’ actions show its duplicity. The Biden administration is trying to promote its Indo-Pacific strategy over and over again. It wants to force ASEAN members to join its small clique and to have unnecessary but dangerous tensions with China while offering no meaningful support to boost regional integration or economic development. It is only interested in costly security cooperation. This in fact weakens ASEAN’s centrality and shows that the US’ purpose is different from what ASEAN wants,” Xu noted.
China has proven its respect and support for ASEAN by actions and notable cooperation projects like high-speed rail construction. China has always insisted on seeking solutions to disputes via diplomacy with relevant countries in the region, and China has never established any new multilateral platforms in the region to weaken the ASEAN’s position. ASEAN members are crystal clear about these differences between China and the US, experts said.
Premier Li took a test ride Wednesday on Southeast Asia’s first high-speed railway, the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway, which connects two Indonesian cities as part of China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, media reported.
ASEAN’s wisdom
According to Indonesian media TEMPO, Indonesian President Joko Widodo hailed the importance of China-ASEAN mutual trust as he opened the summit on Wednesday. He stressed the need for ASEAN and China to realize concrete cooperation that is mutually profitable. “This can only be done if we have trust in each other, which of course needs to be developed and maintained by all parties,” Jokowi said at the Jakarta Convention Center on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, at the 43rd ASEAN Summit, Widodo stated that ASEAN would continue to uphold equality. As the world faces all kinds of issues, greater challenges will come, and there will be things leading to a tussle for influence by the superpowers. “ASEAN has agreed not to become a proxy for any power,” Jokowi said, TEMPO reported.
Chinese analysts said as a major power in ASEAN, Indonesia realizes that with the rising tensions caused by the US-launched containment against China, as well as the tensions between the West and Russia over the Ukraine crisis, ASEAN is facing a danger of becoming an arena for confrontation between great powers.
Marzuki Alie, former speaker of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview that “The relationship between China and the United States has a very complex and growing effect on Southeast Asian conditions. To attain stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia, it is essential that countries in the region maintain a balance and establish mutually beneficial relations with the two countries, as well as promote constructive dialogue and cooperation to achieve stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia.”
“In some respects, China’s contribution to ASEAN is greater than that of other nations, including the United States,” Marzuki said.
