A reception was held on Tuesday in Beijing to mark the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the China-ASEAN comprehensive strategic partnership and the 35th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue relations.
The reception was hosted by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and the ASEAN Committee in Beijing (ACB).
Peng Qinghua, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, Secretary-General of ASEAN Kao Kim Hourn, and diplomatic envoys from ASEAN countries in China were present at the event.
In his address, Kao spoke highly of China-ASEAN cooperation and expressed his expectation to take the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the China-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership as an opportunity to continue advancing development that is more connected, innovative, sustainable and people-centered.
China and ASEAN have been each other's largest trading partners for many consecutive years. The two sides have steadily advanced practical cooperation in areas such as trade, investment, infrastructure development, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and industrial and supply chains, with the outcomes benefiting more than two billion people in the region.
Attending guests said that China and ASEAN are good neighbors, good friends and good partners with a shared future. From the establishment of Dialogue Relations in 1991 to the establishment of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2021, cooperation between the two sides has continued to expand into areas such as political security, economy and trade, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and connectivity, and the partnership has always kept pace with the times. "Chinese technology, Chinese AI and Chinese EVs and renewable energy. We hope we can have more cooperation with China in that field," said Destarata Hamarsan Mustafa, Political Counsellor, Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in China. At present, practical cooperation between China and ASEAN in various fields continues to make new progress, and the scale of trade has reached a new high. In 2025, bilateral trade between China and ASEAN exceeded the one trillion U.S. dollars mark for the first time, and the two sides are each other's largest trading partners.
Five years of China-ASEAN comprehensive strategic partnership commemorated in Beijing
With the Pinglu Canal in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region officially open to shipping, Yangpu Port in south China's Hainan Province will fully leverage the policy and geographical advantages of the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP) to accelerate its development into an international shipping hub, further connecting the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor with global markets.
The canal stretches along the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a strategic trade route connecting China's inland regions with ASEAN and other global markets. It is the first river-to-sea canal project planned and coordinated at the national level since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Located in the northwest of the island province, Yangpu Port is the deep-water port closest to the main international shipping routes in the Beibu Gulf, and is also one of the maritime outlets of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor.
The opening of the Pinglu Canal to navigation has opened up a new sea-river intermodal transport corridor for goods entering and leaving the southwestern region, and has also brought new opportunities to some enterprises.
At a petrochemical enterprise in Danzhou City, robotic arms are bagging and packaging chemical products on a conveyor belt, and these goods will be shipped to southwest China's Guizhou Province and other places.
Most of this enterprise's customers in the Chinese mainland are concentrated in the southwestern Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou. At present, the enterprise is adjusting its future shipping plans in response to the logistics changes brought by the opening of the Pinglu Canal to navigation.
"We plan to shift about 70 percent of our goods to this new sea-river intermodal transport corridor, and overall logistics costs are expected to drop by 30 to 40 percent. Next year we also plan to build another plant in Hainan, which will allow us to take advantage of the free trade port's policies, import raw materials from places like Indonesia, and after processing, sell the products to the southwestern region or re-export them. This is expected to add about 200,000 tons of production capacity," said Wei Jianqiang, head of Hainan Oxiranchem Co., Ltd.
Behind the enterprises' expansion of production and the busier flow of goods, there is also the upgraded service support made possible by the opening of the Pinglu Canal to navigation. In this regard, the relevant authorities have also made full preparations.
"After the Pinglu Canal opens to navigation, we will strengthen safeguard measures in areas such as facilitating the entry and exit of container ships on fixed routes, credit-based regulation, and cross-regional coordination," said Jiang Yufeng, head of the Xiaochantan Maritime Patrol and Law Enforcement Brigade, Yangpu Maritime Safety Administration.
Pinglu Canal underscores growing role of Yangpu Port as int'l shipping hub
