(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-12 20:23

China, ASEAN scholars discuss military modernization, trust building

BEIJING -- Scholars from China and the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathered at a dialogue on Wednesday to discuss how to promote military modernization and regional security and mutual trust.

The 10+1 dialogue, the first of its kind, focused on the causes, measures and trends of military modernization and measures to promote mutual security trust in the region.

Liu Chengjun, president of the Chinese Academy of Military Science (CAMS), the organizer of the dialogue, said the "China-ASEAN Dialogue Between Senior Defense Scholars" would fuel the strategic partnership between China and ASEAN and play a positive role in safeguarding regional peace and stability.

The China-ASEAN senior defense scholars dialogue was launched to implement the consensus reached at the 11th China-ASEAN leaders' meeting.

More than 20 scholars specializing in defense and security participated in the dialogue. The dialogue has added to a series of frequent defense exchange programs between China and ASEAN in recent years.

These included one in 2006, the 10+1 seminar on Asia-Pacific security issues, and three in 2007: the 10+1 seminar on peace-keeping, the 10+3 (ASEAN plus China, Japan and the Republic of Korea) military shooting competition of armed forces and the 10+3 workshop on international disaster relief by armed forces.