Deeper China-ASEAN ties can boost regional growth

Editor's note: This year marks the fifth anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. China News Service spoke to Xu Liping, a professor of the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to discuss the outcomes of this collaboration and the opportunities presented by China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30). Below are excerpts of the interview. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 Upgrade Protocol is expected to accelerate institutional opening-up, enabling both sides to play a more active role in shaping international rules in emerging sectors such as the digital economy, green economy and e-commerce supply chains.

The Global South countries should cooperate across multiple levels and channels to reform and make global governance more equitable. This involves promoting reform of the United Nations Security Council and increasing the influence of the Global South in the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.

New multilateral mechanisms, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, offer the Global South a fresh model of cooperation based on equality and non-bloc confrontation, while the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank addresses gaps in the current financial system by funding infrastructure development.

The China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement and its subsequent upgrades have ensured steady bilateral cooperation. As both sides accelerate their modernization efforts and connectivity networks take shape, the region has become one of the world's fastest-growing and most promising unified markets.

Since establishing dialogue relations in 1991, China and ASEAN have continuously upgraded their ties. To date, China has reached agreements with eight ASEAN member countries to build a community with a shared future, fostering growing political trust. For the past six years, China and ASEAN have remained each other's largest trading partners, with annual bilateral trade exceeding $1 trillion.

ASEAN countries are key partners in the Belt and Road Initiative. Infrastructure projects such as the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, the China-Laos Railway and the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway have significantly enhanced local connectivity. The Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone in Cambodia and the China-Malaysia industrial parks in China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Pahang, Malaysia, have boosted industrialization in the region.

China's 15th Five-Year Plan calls for expanding high-standard opening-up, providing fresh impetus for deepening China-ASEAN cooperation. By emphasizing further opening up of the country's service sector, the plan will create new opportunities for service-sector workers on both sides. It also highlights high-quality development and the growth of new quality productive forces, opening up new avenues for cooperation in high-tech industries, especially artificial intelligence, the low-altitude economy and the green economy.

Furthermore, the plan stresses investment in human capital, which will enhance bilateral cooperation in human resources, including the joint cultivation of high-tech talent and cooperation in vocational education.