Beijing Review:

Sonia Cataumber Brady: The ASEAN-China Commemorative Summit will mark the 15th anniversary of the ASEAN-China dialogue relationship. It will also be an occasion to assess its progress and to chart its future course in light of the prevailing regional and international situation. The summit will enable ASEAN and China to signal to their respective countries and to the international community their determination to further deepen, broaden and strengthen their cooperation based on an effective partnership that will serve the peoples of China and ASEAN, and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.

China and ASEAN have had a very active and dynamic relationship. China was ASEAN’s first dialogue partner to accede to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia in 2003. It was the first country to sign a declaration on a strategic partnership for peace and prosperity with ASEAN in 2003. It is also the first country with which ASEAN signed a framework agreement for the establishment of a free trade area in 2002.

ASEAN is China’s fourth largest trading partner. People-to-people exchanges have grown through 29 cooperative mechanisms dealing with culture, energy, agriculture, public health, tourism and nontraditional security issues, among others. ASEAN and China are partners in various regional and international forums, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN+3 [China, Japan and South Korea], Asia-Europe Meeting and the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation.

The Nanning Summit is expected to reaffirm the commitment of ASEAN countries and China to further the strategic partnership in a way that would ensure the peace, stability and prosperity of the region.

The ASEAN side would like China to continue to support ASEAN’s community-building process, through the Vientiane Action Program and through its investments in the growth areas such as the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area and the Greater Mekong Sub-region.

On the political and security front, both sides should also agree on guidelines and, eventually, specific steps to implement the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, so that we can start moving toward the formulation of a regional code of conduct in the South China Sea.

ASEAN and China should intensify their cooperative efforts to implement the Joint Declaration on Cooperation in the Field of Nontraditional Security Issues, signed in 2002. The Philippines and China can join hands to enhance cooperation and dialogue between ASEAN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). At the moment, only the ASEAN and SCO secretariats have formal links. Considering the common aspirations of the two organizations, I think much more could be achieved if ASEAN-SCO cooperation and dialogue are initiated and pursued.

How do you define the political and economic relations between China and the Philippines within the framework of ASEAN plus China?

Philippines-China bilateral relations are comprehensive and multi-dimensional, as shown by the number of bilateral agreements between the two countries. So active is the relationship that our leaders have characterized Philippines-China relations as being in a “golden age of partnership.”

This partnership is of course boosted by the ASEAN+1 [China] framework. There are as many as 27 cooperative platforms between ASEAN and China that the Philippines actively engages in.