China has been and will always be committed to developing friendly relations and cooperation with other Asian countries so as to jointly promote common development, visiting top legislator Wu Bangguo said in Kuala Lumpur Monday.  

Wu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, was invited by Malaysia's Foreign Ministry to deliver a speech titled "Deepening Good-Neighborly Friendship in Joint Effort for Asian Prosperity."

"Being a member of the big Asian family, a participant in and contributor to Asian peace, development and cooperation, China is well aware of its important responsibility to Asia's peace and development," said Wu.

"China cannot develop in isolation of Asia and vice versa," he said.

"We have always followed the guideline of building good-neighborly relationships and partnerships with surrounding countries and the policy of bringing harmony, security and prosperity to our neighbors," Wu said.

"We will, as always, commit ourselves to friendly relations and cooperation with other Asian countries so as to jointly build a peaceful and tranquil regional environment and promote the common development of Asian countries," he said.

After extolling Asia's ancient civilizations and the Asian people's protracted and arduous struggle for liberation, peace and development, Wu said that with the deepening of economic globalization, Asian countries are faced with both rare opportunities and serious challenges.

The remarkable advancement in science and technology, optimization and restructuring of production factors and the quickened tempo in industrial transfer have all provided Asian countries with favorable conditions for making full use of international capital, technology and market so as to boost domestic economic development, he said.

However, in the mean time, economic globalization has also made worldwide economic and scientific and technological competition fiercer. New trade barriers keep cropping up and the gap between North and South is further widening, putting some Asian countries in tough situations, he said.

The Asian countries should seize the opportunities, face up to the challenges and strengthen their cooperation to pursue common development, he said.

"We should firmly take development as the top priority, concentrate our efforts on domestic affairs and promote Asia's common prosperity while achieving self-development," Wu said. "We should move forward the bilateral and multilateral cooperation of equality and mutual benefit on all fronts, strive to forge a development landscape whereby we shall complement each other with respective advantages and make progress with joint efforts and move economic globalization in a balanced and win-win direction bringing universal benefits."

"We need to establish a solid concept of a Big Asian Family, in which we shall respect each other, conduct friendly consultations and properly handle the various disputes and conflicts in a joint effort to maintain and promote peace and stability in Asia," he added.

In recent years, Asian countries have overcome the impact of the financial crisis, won the battle against SARS and avian flu, and walked out of the shadow of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami disaster, Wu said.

They have beefed up their capacity in fending off risks, achieved positive results in economic restructuring, quickened the pace of industrial upgrading and sustained fairly rapid economic growth, he said.

The economic growth rates of Asian developing countries surpassed 7 percent in 2004 and are expected to stay above 6 percent between 2005 and 2007. Currently, Asia takes up a fourth of the world's economic aggregate, a third of the total trade volume and two-thirds of the foreign exchange reserves.

"China stands ready to join hands with all other Asian countries, Malaysia included, to deepen our good-neighborly friendship and make concerted efforts for a harmonious and prosperous Asia and for our continent's great rejuvenation," he said.

Wu calls for dialogue, cooperation, stability in Asia

Wu reaffirmed China's consistent stand for strengthening political dialogue, expanding economic cooperation and enhancing security cooperation with other Asian countries.

He said in order to deepen its friendly cooperation with other Asian countries, China has consistently stood for strengthening political dialogue and increasing mutual trust.

Treating each other as equals with sincerity, China and other Asian countries have lived in amity by seeking common ground while shelving differences and constantly propelled their bilateral friendly relations toward in-depth development, he said.

China and other Asian countries have maintained the good momentum of exchanges of high-level visits and dialogues on multilateral occasions, he said.

Through equal-footed consultations and in the spirit of mutual understanding and mutual accommodation, China has properly resolved the land boundary questions left over from history with most neighboring countries, he said.

Guided by the principle of shelving disputes and engaging in common development, China has reached consensus with some countries on common development in the South China Sea and held the Senior Officials' Meeting which has brought about positive progress in the South China Sea cooperation, he said.

China stands for expanding economic cooperation and trade to promote common prosperity in Asia as they constitute the material basis for achieving common development, he said. China keeps strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation with other Asian countries, injecting vigor and vitality into the development of state-to-state relations.

China has become the biggest import market in Asia and played a key role in spurring the Asian economic development, he said.

In 2004, China's total trade with the rest of Asia reached US$665 billion, 4.7 times of that in 1994. Last year's import volume stood at US$369.5 billion, up by 35 percent over the previous year.

Meanwhile, mutual investment has been increasingly expanding and personnel exchanges have been frequent. Asia has become China's major source of foreign investment and a key destination for Chinese enterprises to go global, he said.

As of the end of 2003, foreign direct investment (FDI) made by China in the rest of Asia totaled US$26.56 billion, accounting for 80 percent of China's total net FDI outflow.

"We are happy to see that a new type of cooperative relationship has taken shape between China and other Asian countries, characterized by complementarity, mutual benefit, mutual assistance and mutual reinforcement," he said.

Regional cooperation is an important channel for stronger solidarity and coordination. China takes an active part in the Asian regional cooperation in accordance with the principles of reciprocity, mutual benefit and gradualism, and emphasizes the coordination and cooperation with all parties in a bid to jointly push forward the regional economic integration process, he said.

In recent years, relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made big strides. The two sides have established a strategic partnership oriented toward peace and prosperity substantiated by the Action Plan, inaugurated the China-ASEAN FTA process and inked the agreements on trade in goods and the dispute settlement mechanism, thus ushering in a new phase of China-ASEAN relations, Wu said.

On East Asian cooperation, China supports ASEAN's continued leading role and is ready to work with the ASEAN countries to make the first East Asia Summit a success. China will continue to actively participate in the 10+1 and 10+3 cooperation, keep promoting this regional process in trade liberalization and make unremitting efforts for the economic development in East Asia as a whole, he said.

On the issues of enhancing security cooperation to maintain regional stability, Wu said peace and stability are the prerequisites and guarantees of development, adding that China calls for establishing a new type of security concept featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and coordination, resolving disputes through dialogue and promoting common security via cooperation.

"We have actively worked for peaceful resolution of regional hot-spot issues and intensified cooperation with regional countries in the non-traditional security fields including combating terrorism and transnational crimes, maritime security, public health, epidemic control, disaster prevention and reduction and others," he said.

China has also actively participated in and facilitated the security cooperation within ASEAN+China, Japan and South Korea and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), initiated 10+3 Ministerial Meeting on Combating Transnational Crimes and successfully held the ARF security policy meeting, he added.

The world is turning its eyes to Asia and Asia now faces a historic opportunity for accelerated development, Wu said. "China stands ready to join hands with all other Asian countries, Malaysia included, to deepen our good-neighborly friendship and make concerted efforts for a harmonious and prosperous Asia and for our continent's great rejuvenation," he concluded.

China-Malaysia relations bound to embrace even better future

With concerted efforts, the China-Malaysia relationship based on traditional friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation is bound to embrace an even better future, Wu said.

Recalling a long history of the profound friendship between the two close neighbors, he said that 600 years ago, Zheng He, a Chinese envoy in the Ming Dynasty, made seven voyages to the Western Seas and landed in Malacca for five times, leaving many well-known stories in the annuals of China-Malaysia friendly relations.

Leaders of the older generation from both countries realized the normalization of China-Malaysia relations 31 years ago in light of the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the long-term strategies of the two countries, he said, adding that Malaysia became the first ASEAN country to establish diplomatic relations with China, thus not only ushering in a new phase in China-Malaysia friendship, but also creating favorable conditions for the development of China-ASEAN relations.

"Over the past 31 years since mutual diplomatic recognition, China-Malaysia friendship has stood the test of time and international vicissitudes, becoming a common asset of our two peoples," Wu said.

The two countries have trusted and supported each other politically, pursued common economic development through mutually beneficial and reciprocal cooperation, and conducted dynamic exchanges and cooperation in various areas, all contributing to the steady growth in bilateral relations, he observed.

"Upon the 30th anniversary of our diplomatic relations last year, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi paid a successful visit to China, during which he reached important consensus with the Chinese leaders on pushing forward China-Malaysia strategic cooperation, charting the course for the deepening of our relations," he said.

Malaysian Supreme Head of State Syed Sirajuddin's state visit to China in March further promoted the traditional friendship between the two countries, he added.

"We have been heartened by the visible results and sound momentum in our economic cooperation and trade which has lent an inexhaustible impetus to the development of our relations," Wu said.

During the years between 1990 and 2004, two-way trade rose by 21 times to US$26.26 billion last year. Malaysia has become a major trading partner of China among ASEAN countries.

With the current momentum sustained, Wu said, annual two-way trade is expected to reach or even exceed US$50 billion by 2010.

China is a major importer of Malaysian electronic products, palm oil and rubber. Bilateral cooperation in such identified key areas as agriculture, hi-tech, resource development and infrastructure is on the upswing. Bilateral cooperation in tourism and education is also expanding rapidly.

As developing countries, China and Malaysia share broad agreement and have maintained good cooperation and coordination on many major international and regional issues, which has contributed to maintaining and promoting the legitimate rights and interests of the developing countries, he said.

On international relations, Wu said, "We both stand for the democratization of international relations, maintaining that people of all countries should decide on their own domestic affairs and international affairs be handled through equal-footed consultations among countries."

"We both advocate respect for the diversity of civilizations, which can complement each other amid competition and comparison and achieve common development by seeking common ground and shelving differences," he said. "We share the view that economic globalization should benefit all developing countries and that South-South cooperation, North-South dialogue and regional cooperation should be actively promoted in pursuit of common prosperity."

"Facts have proved that better China-Malaysia relations are in the fundamental interests of our two peoples and conducive to regional peace and prosperity," he said.

China attaches great importance to developing relations with Malaysia. "The purpose of my visit is to further our exchanges and cooperation in all areas and continue to push our relations forward," he added.

Malaysia is the last leg of Wu's four-nation Asia-Pacific tour, which has also taken him to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2005)