On February 8, 2018, Indonesian English newspaper the Jakarta Post published the article "China, ASEAN enter a new era hand in hand" written by H.E. Mr. Huang Xilian, Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN. The full text is as follows:
Last year marked the golden jubilee of ASEAN. Over the past half century, ASEAN has come a long way, tailoring a path of its own in creating the first subregional community in Asia, an achievement hailed as an "Asian miracle" by many. ASEAN has grown into a role model of pursuing strength and harmony among diverse countries of many differences, and has set up a regional platform of dialogue and cooperation.
ASEAN is now opening the first chapter of its second 50 years. With blueprints including the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the newly minted theme of resilience and innovation this year, the regional community is entering a brand-new era of prosperity and progress. China applauds ASEAN's success and believes that the "living and breathing modern miracle" of ASEAN, as Kishore Mahbubani and Jeffery Sng pointed out in their book, will continue to flourish in the future.
For China, 2017 was a year of significance, too. Last October, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) laid out a three-stage development plan for the next 30 years toward building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035, and developing China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and environmentally sound by the middle of the century. It symbolizes a new era and new journey in China's quest to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics.
This new era does not belong to China alone, and is one that can be created and shared by all. We aim to foster a new type of international relations that features mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation, and of building a community with a shared future for all mankind.
Such efforts start with our neighbors, not least our ASEAN friends. China will deepen relations with neighboring countries guided by the principle of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness as well as the policy of forging friendship and partnership with our neighbors.
China will remain a firm supporter of ASEAN community building.
Good neighbors are a blessing. China places ASEAN high on its diplomatic agenda, especially in the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and in its efforts to build a closer community for a shared future. Since the launch of the dialogue process in 1991, China-ASEAN relations have blossomed as one of the most vigorous and dynamic relationships for ASEAN and its dialogue partners, with fruitful results spanning wide-ranging areas, profusely benefiting our two billion people.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership and the China-ASEAN Year of Innovation. As we both move into a new era of development and progress, our relations will also enter a new era of growth, from a speed-driven to a more efficient and mature growth, with broader prospects and vast potential to be harnessed together.
At the informal dialogue between APEC and ASEAN leaders in Da Nang last November, President Xi Jinping encouraged the two sides to foster a higher level of strategic partnership toward building a closer China-ASEAN community of a shared future to contribute to realizing coordinated development and common prosperity in the Asia-Pacific. A few days later at the ASEAN-China Summit in Manila, Premier Li Keqiang proposed formulating the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership Vision 2030 and upgrading the "2+7" cooperation framework into a "3+X" framework, underpinned by the three pillars of political and security cooperation, economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges.
These initiatives, once put into full action, will provide considerable impetus for our relations across the board and expand the regional and global dimensions of China-ASEAN cooperation.
China and ASEAN will continue to build political and security trust. Vision 2030 will be a vision of progress, unity and win-win development, a good fit for the times and embodying the shared aspirations of the two sides. We shall continue to maintain close high-level exchanges, and enhance strategic communication and policy dialogue to increase trust and understanding.
China will remain a firm supporter of ASEAN community building, ASEAN centrality in regional cooperation and its bigger role in regional and international affairs. China will work with ASEAN countries to push forward the Code of Conduct consultation and jointly uphold peace and stability in the South China Sea.
We will enhance synergy to maximize our growth momentum. China will work with ASEAN to better align the BRI with the ASEAN Community Vision 2025, particularly the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025. We will work closely on land, sea, aviation and cyber projects to enhance regional connectivity. The 2018 China-ASEAN Year of Innovation and ASEAN's theme of resilience and innovation will be better matched with concrete efforts to materialize our cooperation potentials.
We will also intensify trade and economic cooperation to expand shared interest. Last year, the two-way trade volume exceeded US$500 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13.8 percent. China's imports from ASEAN grew by 20.1 percent, quite a major highlight of the international trade map.
With the conclusion of an upgraded protocol for the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, we hope the terms can be fully implemented to fully benefit the business community and ordinary people. China will work with ASEAN to advance the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations and bring our regions closer toward the goal of an East Asia economic community by 2020.
The importance of people-to-people links can never be understated, as they provide the source and drive for closer relations at the top. China and ASEAN will enhance exchanges in education, tourism, sports and culture, as well as among youth, think tanks and the media, to consolidate the social foundation for our friendship and to build up the third pillar of China-ASEAN relations.
In 2016, more than 38 million trips were made between the two sides. The figure will only grow as we implement the Joint Statement between China and ASEAN on Tourism Cooperation. At present, there are over 200,000 China and ASEAN students studying in each other's countries. China will provide more than 20,000 government scholarships to ASEAN in the next three years.
With renewed confidence and expectations on the doorstep of a new era, we will work to our utmost with friends across ASEAN to bring about an even brighter future for the China-ASEAN strategic partnership.
Source: Fmprc
Key words: Ambassador Huang Xilian, China, ASEAN, enter, a new era, hand in hand
