The series of meetins held by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) starting in Bali, Indonesia, on Thursday, should be an opportunity for participants to expand common ground and explore new areas of cooperation, so that the region can better contribute to regional and global development and stability.

ASEAN’s traditional dialogue partners, China, Japan and South Korea, will participate and Russia and the United States have been invited to take part for the first time.

Despite the global economic uncertainty, Asia has managed to register fast economic growth and there are high expectations that its emerging economies will be the engine to drive the world’s economic recovery. The expansion in China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation has helped foster these expectations.

China-ASEAN trade has grown rapidly. The volume of bilateral trade jumped to $292.8 billion in 2010 compared to $7.96 billion in 1991. China is now the largest trading partner of ASEAN, while ASEAN ranks as China’s third-largest trading partner.

Today, China and ASEAN are highly complementary in trade and there is every reason for the two sides to build on this strong momentum and tap their potential in other areas of cooperation.

China is always sincere in its desire for good-neighborly relations with ASEAN countries. To carry forward the long tradition of friendship between them, it expects the Bali meetings to deepen mutual trust and inject new vitality into their relations.

China also supports ASEAN’s leading role in regional cooperation and integration and holds that countries from outside the region should play a positive and constructive role in regional affairs.

This is especially relevant given that one or two nations in Southeast Asia are courting the support of the United States in their territorial disputes with China over the South China Sea, and the U.S. is keen to further its own economic and security interests in the region.

Some countries have tried to use freedom of navigation to murky the waters of the South China Sea issue. But the fact that about half of the world’s sea-borne commerce is conducted via the South China Sea proves such concerns are simply mischief making.

China maintains the South China Sea disputes should be solved through peaceful bilateral negotiations with only those parties directly involved, and it supports enacting a code of conduct to implement the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.

Hence, any attempt to raise the South China Sea issue in Bali is doomed to failure and will only serve to divert attention from the real agenda of regional development. 

(China Daily)

(Asia News Network)