ASEAN, partners to deepen cooperation: Chinese lawmaker

Cooperation between the ASEAN and its dialogue partners, including China, will see new progress in the coming time, a Chinese parliamentarian said at the 26th AIPO General Assembly which opened Monday in VIENTIANE.

"No matter what happens, the cooperation process we have started, including ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) integration and the cooperation between the block and its dialogue partners is irreversible," Wang Yingfan, Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee under the National People's Congress of China (NPC), stated at the first plenary session of the four-day assembly of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization (AIPO).

He said the first East Asia Summit slated for December in Malaysia will be conducive to intra-ASEAN cooperation, East Asia cooperation, and cooperation between East Asia and other regions of Asia as well as the world.

"China expects that ASEAN will continue to play the role of the driving force in the process of East Asian cooperation and in the East Asia Summit," Wang said, noting that the China-ASEAN strategic partnership for peace and prosperity has now become a dynamic and fruitful regional cooperation.

Close contacts, especially the mutual exchange of visits, between leaders of China and ASEAN countries, which enable comprehensive face-to-face exchange of views, have strengthened mutual understanding and trust, effectively pushing forward the friendly cooperation between the two sides, he noted.

The Chinese lawmaker hoped AIPO and ASEAN parliaments would play more important role in ASEAN integration and the mutually beneficial cooperation between the 10-member block and its dialogues as well as other countries.

During the assembly, parliamentarians from 10 ASEAN countries and their dialogue partners, nine AIPO observers, are to touch upon such global and regional issues as anti-terrorism and sea piracy, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, the ASEAN economic community roadmap, the establishment of an ASEAN development fund, legal cooperation on combating women and child trafficking, disaster management, international security, trade liberalization, preventive measures for natural disasters, educational cooperation, and technology transfer.

The assembly will adopt a joint communiqu and around 17 resolutions on Thursday. The next assembly will be held in the Philippines.

AIPO was initiated by the Indonesian House of Representatives in 1974, and officially set up three years later by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The organization embraced Vietnam in 1995, Laos in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999.

Two other ASEAN members, Brunei and Myanmar, are accredited as the AIPO's special observers sine they have no legislatures. They engage in full activities of the organization.

AIPO's nine observers include Australia, Canada, China, the European Parliament, Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia and South Korea.

Source: Xinhua