BEIJING: The in-person meeting between foreign ministers of China and ASEAN countries scheduled to be held in Chongqing from Monday to Tuesday carries “special significance,” as China and the bloc are set to have comprehensive discussions on jointly weathering the pandemic, boosting economic development, moving bilateral ties forward without being wavered by extraterritorial forces, and other issues, observers said.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will attend the Special ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Dialogue Relations and the sixth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Chongqing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Sunday.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of dialogue relations between China and ASEAN, which sees special significance for bilateral relations to build on past achievements and pursue new progress, Wang Wenbin said
The spokesperson noted that the face-to-face meetings under the ongoing grim COVID-19 situation reflect countries attach great importance to and hold high expectations for China-ASEAN relations under the new circumstances.
“The two sides now are facing several urgent issues to negotiate over, and fighting COVID-19 tops the list,” said Chen Xiangmiao, an assistant research fellow at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, who predicted that China and ASEAN countries will step up their cooperation on vaccine sharing in order to help the bloc staunch the rising number of viral infections.
When Wang Yi met with Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesian president’s special envoy and the country’s coordinator for cooperation with China in Guiyang, Southwest China’s Guizhou Province, on Saturday, the two sides agreed to continue to deepen cooperation across the entire vaccine industrial chain, including research and development, production and distribution, and China will help Indonesia build a regional vaccine production center.
Chen said the next pressing issue on the agenda between China and the bloc is economic resurgence. The expert said that economic cooperation between the two is continuing its strong momentum after the signing of the RCEP, the world’s largest trade deal, which includes China and 10 members of the bloc. Overtaking the EU, ASEAN jumped to become China’s top trading partner in 2020.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
