China will firmly pursue an independent and peaceful foreign policy toward its neighbors including ASEAN countries, in line with the deepened reform and modernization course stipulated in the recent third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Fu Fengshan, chargé d'affaires of the Chinese Mission to ASEAN, gave this reassurance during a dialogue forum at his office in Jakarta on August 6.

The significance of the plenary session to China and ASEAN was the theme of a session hosted by the China-ASEAN Media and Think Tank Salon. The latter provides a regular forum for Chinese officials and representatives of media organizations and research institutes to discuss issues.

"I would like to stress that modernization is the natural right of every country. The Chinese modernization is one that follows the path of peaceful development, and China firmly pursues a peaceful policy toward its neighbors," Fu said. Such a policy will bring greater world peace and stability, he added.
Fu told forum participants that the "across the board" and "people-centered" reforms stipulated by the third plenary session comprised economic structural reform and reform in other sectors including education, science, technology and talent.

He added that China will support all countries to embark on a successful on path that suits their national conditions and work together to promote modernization.

China and ASEAN are currently each other's largest trading partner, with ASEAN having overtaken the European Union as China's top trading partner.
ASEAN and China signed the ASEAN-China Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation in November 2002, which provided the two sides with the legal basis to negotiate for further agreements.

In 2010, they signed the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area that provides a strong foundation for enhancing economic relations between them.

In November 2021, at a special ASEAN-China Summit held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of ASEAN-China Dialog Relations, the ASEAN-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was established.

Wang Boyong, minister councillor at the Chinese Mission to ASEAN, said during the dialogue that China's opening-up means that the country will open its market wider to the outside world in an orderly manner, and unilaterally would open its doors to the least developed countries.

"China will continue to expand its imports and the products from ASEAN will enjoy easier access to the Chinese market," he said.

During the session some participants asked for more clarifications on certain issues relating to ASEAN-China ties.

The 10-member ASEAN and 10 other countries, including China, established the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1992, which provides a platform for discussing current security issues and developing cooperative measures to maintain peace and dialogue in the Indo-Pacific region.

Mabda H. Fajrilla Sidiq, researcher at The Habibie Center in Jakarta, said the overall goal of exchanges between ASEAN and China in the future should be always to enhance their commitment to multilateralism and make multilateralism a preferable option for global governance than acting unilaterally — a position strongly upheld by Chinese leadership.

Muhammad Abdurrohim, researcher from Universitas Indonesia in Depok near Jakarta, called on ASEAN countries to learn from China's economic reforms and its strategic opening up to the global market so as to increase their competitiveness.

He said ASEAN countries need to learn from China's innovation measures and technological advancement by prioritizing research and development.

Aleksius Djemadu, international political science professor at Universitas, told China Daily on a separate occasion that ASEAN and China should strongly maintain their culture of mutual trust so as to continue their cooperation.

The CPC Central Committee's formal support for ASEAN-China cooperation provides a strong reference for future cooperation between the two parties, Djemadu said.

"Commitment at government level plays an important role in making strategic policies that would be able to strengthen ASEAN's trust towards Beijing that the currently ongoing cooperation will continue," he said.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily

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Original third par:

Fu was explaining about the significance of the Third Plenary Session to China and ASEAN, which was the theme of the so-called China-ASEAN Media&Think Tank Salon, which provides a regular dialog forum for Chinese officials and representatives of media organizations and research institutes.

M. Habib Abiyan Dzakwan, a researcher at the Department of International Relations of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, praised in the dialog forum the ever stronger economic ties between ASEAN and China but said he was curious about whether the Third Plenary Session implies China's development of closer link between economic affairs and security matters when dealing with the Southeast Asian region.