Shortly after his visits of Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos and Thailand last October, His
Excellency Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister of China, started another round of charm offensive in
ASEAN countries of Myanmar, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines from January 11 to 16. In his
interview by Xin Hua News Agency on January 15th, Prof. Dr. Tang, Director of CASPIM reviewed
the new spots of the major themes of Minister Wang’s ASEAN visits: Fighting Coronavirus,
Economic Recovery & Development, and Regional Peace & Stability.
On fighting coronavirus, the new development is the authorization by Indonesian health
authority for emergency adoption of Covid vaccine from a Chinese company. The public started
the inoculation on January 13, led by President Joko Widodo. It is exemplary for the cooperation
in the region for clinical trials phase III and emergency adoption.
On economic recovery & development, on top of the initiation of the “green channel” for
logistic, and “express channel” for the movement of personnel to stabilize regional supply chain;
and propelling the key railway projects in Laos, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, digital
economy, smart manufacturing, 5G, big data, smart city are highlighted regional cooperation in
response to the expansion of e-commerce, video conference, telemedicine, and online education
during the Covid pandemic. More BRI projects are geared towards people’s livelihood. Another
movement is China’s emphasis on legal protection and institutional guarantee to protect its
investment and trade as a response to the increasing risks as a new direction under the BRI
framework.
On the background of global contraction in trade and investment, trade in goods between China
and ASEAN reached RMB 4.74 trillion, the highest among the major trade partners of EU, USA,
Japan and Korea, at a growth rate of 7%. The Chinese FDI in ASEAN was $10.7 billion in the first
3 quarters of 2020 at a growth rate of 76.6%, while that of ASEAN to China was $5.5 billion in the
same period, at a growth rate of 6.6%. The economic integration of China and ASEAN became
the engine of global economic recovery.
On regional peace & stability, Minister Wang looked forward to returning towards multilateralism
of the USA under the new government of Joe Biden, but rebuked closed cliques, enforcing the
rules of a minority on international community, and forming a alliance of ideology against
particular countries.