The solid relationship between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is based on trust and reflected across various sectors of cooperation, said ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn.
In an interview with China Media Group (CMG) released on Friday, Kao noted that China-ASEAN relations have steadily grown over the 35 years since they were established, underpinned by trust.
"Partnership between ASEAN and China started some 35 years ago when both sides agreed to have this form of partnership, what we call ASEAN-China dialogue relations. Over this three and a half decades, we've seen that the relationship, cooperation, partnership, have expanded considerably. When we elevated initial dialogue partnership to strategic partnership and then to the comprehensive strategic partnership, there is a consistent elevation of partnership over this period of time. And that's based on the key foundation of the partnership that is trust, meaning that we have been working together through the various sectors and areas of cooperation together over a period of time," he said.
Kao also highlighted the multi-layered nature of the bilateral relations, including the exchanges beyond the government level.
"Also of course, the relations between the two sides is not just government to government. You have business to business, you have people to people. So this is what we call layers of a relationship. And that is significant in that regard because any relationship that is strong is based on identities, on people. So I think the fact that we have, like last year, some 21.7 million visitors from China alone, and of course we have ASEAN travelers outbound to China as well. Of course, the exchange of students, the exchange of businesspeople, there's all kind of exchanges. These exchanges, they are not acts of isolation or [occuring] in isolation. They were consistently building over time. High-level trade, say in the case of China and ASEAN. China has been ASEAN number one trading partner for the past 17 consecutive years. So I think these numbers speak for themselves. You know that trade, investment, tourism, connectivity -- these are the key areas that make the relation strong and quite solid," said the ASEAN Secretary-General.
Strong China-ASEAN relationship is based on trust: ASEAN Secretary-General
