Promoting All-round Development of China-ASEAN Ties

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 26, 2002

Promoting All-round Development of China-ASEAN Ties

The first high level and large-scale China-ASEAN Media Cooperation Seminar opened in Beijing Monday, September 23. Hosted by the official People's Daily, the seminar focuses on China's cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the media field and how both sides' media face the challenge of information technology.

DISCUSSION

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China and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) will hold a 10+1 summit meeting in Cambodia this November, which will push our bilateral cooperative relations to a higher level. The present media seminar, held in such a moment, is of particularly important significance. Here I want to say something about my views on three aspects: political relations, economic-trade ties and the news media own relations of China and ASEAN.

1. China and ASEAN are friendly neighbors, China's exchanges with Southeast Asian countries go back to ancient times. By 1991, China had successively established or restored diplomatic relations with all ASEAN member countries, five years thereafter China became ASEAN's all-round dialog partner. In 1997, President Jiang Zemin and ASEAN leaders jointly decided to establish good neighborly, mutual-trust partnership oriented to the 21st century, setting a new objective of struggle for both sides.

It is said that news is a history of happening events. Journalists of China and ASEAN nations, disregarding whether this definition is correct or not and wielding their pens and raising their voices, have taken splendid pictures, evidenced and recorded the historical process of the development of bilateral political relations and have brought these pieces of major news information to the people of both sides, which has, to some extent, promoted and expedited the smooth development of the political relations of China and ASEAN. Particularly in recent years, there have been frequent high-level contacts between the two sides and active dialogs at various levels, the shadows of diligent and devoted journalists can be seen in the process of the deepening political mutual trust and at every important moment of the development of bilateral relations.

Therefore, I maintain that mature and stable political relations featuring mutual trust are the common goal of China and ASEAN as well as the prerequisite and foundation for the development of bilateral economic-trade relations and exchange and cooperation between media. Previously, particularly in the last decade, the journalists of both sides have made inneglible contributions to the smooth development of China-ASEAN political relations, at the same time, the media have also benefited from the good atmosphere characterized by such political mutual trust, the present seminar of ours is an evidence.

2. Both China and ASEAN belong to developing countries and are faced with the common task of economic development. It can be said that the good momentum of China-ASEAN political relations has provided a necessary guarantee for both sides to develop deeper-level economic-trade cooperation.

The status of China and ASEAN in each other's economic strategy has witnessed a notable rise, a virtuous interacting positive situation featuring such political mutual trust and economic integration has taken shape in the relations between China and ASEAN, which has set new requirements on our media. We haven't forgotten the storm of the Asian financial crisis occurred several years ago, at that time Asia gave full play to the role of the mass media which played an inestimable, positive and vigorous role in inspiring people to overcome the crisis with one heart and one mind and revitalize national economies. At present, when China and ASEAN are again deepening their mutual understanding, the media are required to do their bit to boost the endeavors of both sides to communicate news, supply each other's needs and promote the links and exchanges in bilateral economic cooperation, new, higher demands are also set on us journalists to improve our own qualities.

3. The media are a window on the situation of a country and its people. Strengthening cooperation and exchange between news media is an important way to promote mutual understanding and enhance friendship between the people of various countries. Last year when Premier Zhu Rongji attended the Fifth ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and the ROK) Conference, he clearly noted, "the development of state-to-state relationship depends on the understanding and support of the people of various countries". One of media's functions is to erect a bridge of understanding, trust and support between the people of various countries, Premier Zhu proposed that China and ASEAN countries extensively develop exchanges among various social circles, he said links and cooperation between news media are also very important and help enhance mutual understanding and raise Asia's voice on the international stage.

I believe that China and its media colleagues of ASEAN will, as always, constantly strengthen their exchange and cooperation, incessantly deepen mutual friendship, boost an all-round development of China-ASEAN relations and, in the process of the construction of a China-ASEAN free trade zone and in the surging tide of economic globalization, as the famous Chinese poet Li Bai said, "riding on the long wind and breaking 10,000-li waves", achieve a higher-level "win, win"-the "win, win" for China and ASEAN, the "win, win" for political relations and economic-trade cooperation, and the "win, win" for the media of China and ASEAN!

The author of this article is Wang Chen, editor-in-chief of People's Daily

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