ASEAN youth find new momentum in Hainan

Youth cooperation between China and ASEAN members requires friendships, shared experiences and the creation of long-term development opportunities, officials and youth representatives said on Monday at a seminar in Haikou, Hainan province.

The 2026 China-ASEAN Youth Work Seminar, one of the key activities of the 2026 "Bridge of the Future" China-ASEAN Young Leaders Field Study and Workshop Program and the Acceleration Week for China-ASEAN Youth Development Programs, focused on China-ASEAN youth exchanges, collaboration and shared development. It ends on Thursday. Organizers said the goal is to inject continuous youthful momentum into building a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future.

About 50 people attended, including representatives of Chinese and ASEAN youth organizations and youth representatives.

Liu Fangying, vice president of the All-China Youth Federation, described young people's role in advancing the China-ASEAN community with a shared future and outlined expectations for deeper youth cooperation. General Nop Rathnimul, deputy commander of the Bodyguard Headquarters, Cambodia, and adviser of the prime minister, delivered remarks emphasizing friendly China-ASEAN youth cooperation.

Haikou and Sanya promoted themselves as youth development-oriented cities, highlighting opportunities.

Kevin Arnan Sanchez, an administrative assistant in the National Youth Commission of the Philippines, said China is a vital partner for his country. His Hainan visit gave him a direct sense of the province's dynamism and openness, he said.

Youth cooperation, he added, is an important foundation of bilateral friendship, not merely a short-term conference exchange but a process of building friendships, sharing experiences and creating long-term development opportunities. "Young people should be not only beneficiaries of regional development but also active participants and contributors," he said. He called for deeper China-Philippines exchanges in trade, youth and culture, and more regular interaction platforms so that more Filipino youth can visit Hainan and learn about China.

Shahrinah Haji Abd Rahman, assistant chief youth and sports officer ub Brunei Darussalam's Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, visited China and Hainan for the first time. She said that the countries differ in national conditions and development scale, but they have strong complementarity and broad cooperation space in youth leadership training, digital skills, innovation, entrepreneurship, volunteer service and community development.

Her visit also gave her a new understanding of the Hainan Free Trade Port, which she described as combining trade, tourism, science, innovation and infrastructure, and serving as both a window for China's opening-up and a key hub linking China and ASEAN.

Pu Qiujing, China business director and partner of IMCN, praised the seminar's format, saying it created an efficient and practical dialogue platform for Chinese youth to communicate with ASEAN youth leaders. She said she hopes to use the Hainan Free Trade Port's opening-up advantages to invite more ASEAN influencers and livestreamers to China, building diverse people-to-people bridges through new media and enriching China-ASEAN exchanges.