The Asian-African Summit 2005 and the commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the 1955 Asian-African Conference will be held respectively in Jakarta and Bandung, Indonesia, in days with over 100 heads of state and government or their representatives expected to attend.  

Twenty-nine government delegations from Asian and African countries, including that led by the late premier Zhou Enlai, took part in the Bandung Conference in 1955. As a developing Asian country, China attaches great importance to building good-neighborly relations with its neighbors and other Asian countries.

China's Asia policy is to "build good neighborly relations and partnership with its neighbors" and to "secure an amicable, tranquil and prosperous neighborhood" aiming to safeguard peace and prosperity, enhance exchanges and cooperation, seek mutual benefit and strive for common prosperity and development.

Enhanced political relations

Soon after the People's Republic of China was founded in October 1949, many Asian countries recognized and established diplomatic relations with it. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Mongolia established diplomatic relations with China in the same month, and Myanmar (then Burma), Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) also forged diplomatic ties with China in the 1950s.

China has appropriately solved boundary disputes left by history with most of its neighbors and peaceful negotiations are still under way with a few countries for resolving boundary issues. During Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to India earlier this month, the two sides signed an agreement on the political parameters and guiding principles for the settlement of the boundary question, which is the first such document since the Sino-Indian boundary negotiation began in 1981, and marks the negotiation has entered a new stage.

The exchange of visits by high-ranking leaders between China and other Asian nations has witnessed a rapid increase over the past years, which has greatly enhanced their mutual understanding and consolidated and promoted their friendly cooperative relations. This month, Premier Wen already visited Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lank and India, and President Hu Jintao will soon visit Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.

China and other Asian countries have been coordinating their positions and supporting each other in the international arena. Asian countries supported China's resumption of its membership in the United Nations and have adhered to the one-China policy. At the same time, China supported their just struggle for safeguarding national sovereignty and against superpower hegemonism.

China has built "strategic partnership relations" with many Asian countries. In October 2003, China, as the first non-Southeast Asian country, formally joined the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC). The move has laid a political and legal basis for further enhancing mutual trust and developing bilateral relations. The past years have witnessed a sound development of friendly relations between China and the ASEAN members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Closer economic and trade relations

Bilateral trade between China and Asian countries constitutes more than 55 percent of China's trade volume. As a large potential market in the world, China has created great opportunities for Asian countries in terms of importation, direct investment and tourism. China is now the world's third import market and the first import market in Asia. China's increasing need of imports has become one of the major forces stimulating a strong economy in Asia.

In 2003, China's trade with Asian countries topped US$495.5 billion, an increase of 36.5 percent over the previous year. During the January-May period in 2004, bilateral trade volume hit US$245.5 billion, up 36.5 percent from the year-ago period. In 2003, China imported from Asian countries and regions US$272.9 billion worth of goods, up 42.4 percent on a year-on-year basis. China's import from ASEAN, Japan, the Republic of Korea and India also registered an average growth of over 35 percent.

Since 1990, China's trade with ASEAN has reported an annual average growth of about 20 percent. In 2004, bilateral trade amounted to US$105.9 billion, up 35 percent, with China exporting US$42.9 billion worth of goods and importing US$63 billion worth of products from ASEAN, up 39 percent and 33 percent from the same period of the previous year.

So far ASEAN has become the fifth largest trade partner for China for 12 consecutive years.

Since the Framework Agreement on China-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation was signed in November 2002, with a proposed free trade area involving 1.7 billion people, products worth almost US$2,000 billion and trade totaling US$1,200 billion, China-ASEAN economic and trade ties have hit the fast lane. It is expected that within five years, China-ASEAN area will be the third largest free trade area in the world following the North America FTA and the European Union FTA.

Besides, President Hu and ROK President Roh Moo-hyun in November 2004 reached a consensus to develop non-government joint study on the feasibility of free trade agreement (FTA).

China and ROK witnessed rapid growth in trade in recent years. In 2004, trade between the two countries amounted to US$90.06 billion, a year-on-year increase of 42.4 percent. China is ROK's largest trade partner while ROK is China's fourth largest trade partner. By 2004 ROK's investment in China reached US$6.25 billion while Chinese enterprises' investment in ROK totaled US$1.17 billion.

In February 2001, the Boao Forum for Asia was launched in south China's Hainan Province. It is aimed to provide a platform for high-level dialogues for Asian countries to promote regional integration and economic development of Asian countries.

Increasing cultural, scientific and technological exchanges

Coupled with enhanced diplomatic and economic cooperation, China and other Asian countries have seen steady growth of exchanges in the fields of culture, science, technology, information and telecommunications, public health, human resources, education and tourism.

China has inked with many Asian countries cultural agreements and scientific and technological protocols as well as annual implementation plans.

In March 1965, China signed the Cultural Agreement and Annual Implementation Plan with Pakistan. In 2003, the two countries inked the Cultural Exchange Implementation Plan (2004-2006). Since the Sino-Pakistan Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement was inked in 1976, their governments have held 15 science and technology joint commission meetings and signed agreements on 417 scientific and technological cooperation projects.

Since the establishment of Sino-Thai diplomatic relations, the Agreement on Scientific and Technological Cooperation was signed in 1978, the Agreement on Tourism Cooperation in 1993, the Extradition Treaty in 1993, the Agreement on Legal Assistance in Civil and Commercial Matters and Arbitrary Cooperation in 1994, the Memorandum of Understanding on Cultural Cooperation in 1996, the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Areas of Health and Medical Science and Pharmaceuticals in 1997, the Memorandum of Understanding on Strengthening Cooperation in Drug-Prohibition in 2000, the Agreement on Cultural Cooperation in 2001, and the Treaty on Assistance in Criminal Judicature in 2003. The Chinese and Thai military have long maintained friendly contacts and there were frequent exchanges of visits between their commanders and regular exchanges of cadets for training between military academies.

In addition, the Joint Committee on Sino-Thai Scientific and Technological Cooperation was founded in 1978, and the Thai-Chinese Friendship Association as well as the Sino-Thai Friendship Association were founded in 1976 and 1987 respectively.

Cooperation between China and Singapore in talents exchange and training is very active. In addition to the Managerial Economics Masters program designed for Chinese senior officials and the Mayor's Class program for Chinese mayors, Singapore also sends people to China to help train talents on a regular basis. Now the two countries have close exchange and cooperation in science and technology, education and culture.

China and ASEAN also launched senior officials meeting and ministerial meeting on affairs of young people, and in May 2004 the China-ASEAN Young Entrepreneurs Summit was held in China. The two sides are working on the Memorandum of Understanding on Cultural Cooperation and a mechanism for public health ministers' meeting.

Asian countries have become many Chinese tourists' first destination. With China's economic development, more Chinese will go to other Asian countries for sightseeing or business. 

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2005)