China boosts ties with neighbors in pursuit of shared prosperity

Chinese leaders made headlines in the past few months not only by unveiling a robust reform agenda, but also with their efforts to strengthen ties with neighboring countries, especially the Southeast Asian nations.

The key message was the pursuit of shared security and prosperity between China and its neighbors, scholars said.

Addressing the Indonesian parliament in early October, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he would like to see China working together with Indonesia and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to make "good neighbors, friends and partners that would share prosperity and security and stick together through thick and thin."

"By making joint efforts, we will build a more closely knit China-ASEAN community of shared destiny so as to bring more benefits to both China and ASEAN and to the people in the region," he said.

SHARED PROSPERITY

Xi, who took office as China's top leader in March, once again extended the message of pursuing shared prosperity through mutually beneficial cooperation at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit during a week-long tour that also took him to Malaysia.

During his trip, Xi made a number of commitments, with a focus on deliverables such as trade and infrastructure.

He said China would further open up its market to ASEAN, with a target of increasing trade volume with ASEAN to 1 trillion U.S. dollars by 2020 from 400 billion dollars in 2012. He also proposed to establish an Asian Infrastructure Development Bank to help countries in the region develop much-needed infrastructure like roads and railways.

He said China would make more efforts to boost connectivity in the Asia Pacific region and maritime cooperation with ASEAN nations.

"The message sent by the Chinese leadership, including the president, the premier and the foreign minister, is clear: China, as a major power, is committed to pursuing win-win cooperation with its neighbors," said Huang Jing, director of the Center on Asia and Globalization at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

Huang said the message seemed to contain three parts. The first was China wants to work with its neighbors to promote regional development. "China sees itself and its neighbors as depending on each other for shared fortunes, good or bad," he said.

The second part was China wants to be a power making peace instead of instability in the region, and China would like to see itself and its neighbors working together, as partners on an equal footing, to safeguard stability, he said.

Huang said it was also clear China wants to see all the parties cooperating with one another for the benefit of the region, and that it does not want to see any major powers from outside the region encouraging trouble-making for their perceived interests on certain disputed issues.

"China does not want to see countries that are not directly involved make trouble in the region by encouraging louder voices on the disputes, and it does not want to see its Southeast Asian neighbors used by such external powers," Huang said.