Myanmar Looks forward to Closer Relations between China and ASEAN

The 10th China—ASEAN Expo and Business and Investment Summit was held from September 3 to 6. As one of ten ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, Myanmar’s president U Thein Sein attended the summit and delivered a speech. As this was U Thein Sein’s second appearance at the expo since he won the presidential election, both Myanmar’s official and private media paid close attention to it.

How to evaluate the role China has played in promoting business cooperation and investment between China and ASEAN countries via the platform of China-ASEAN Expo and Business and Investment Summit which has been held for ten times over the past decade?

Khin Maung Lynn, joint secretary of the Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies (MISIS), said to the author, as China is the most significant trade partner of the ASEAN, the China-ASEAN Expo plays an important role in strengthening friendly relations between China and the ASEAN and promoting the economic and trade cooperation of both sides.

Just as what China’s Premier Li Keqiang said, China and the ASEAN had succeeded in building a past “Golden Decade”, and they would create a new “Diamond Decade” in the future.

Khin Maung Lynn said, China is Myanmar's traditional friendly neighbor as well as its biggest partner of trade and investment. As Myanmar is carrying out economic reform, it eagerly hopes to develop good relations with China.

Myanmar positively participates in the China-ASEAN Expo every year and more than 100 enterprises of Myanmar joined the expo this year. As an agricultural country, Myanmar needs to export more agricultural products to China.

With the relatively fast development of trade at Sino-Myanmar border at the moment, Myanmar also wants to take the opportunity of the expo to introduce its products to more Chinese enterprises.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the strategic partnership between China and the ASEAN. Khin Maung Lynn believed that over the past decade, the pattern “10+1” of China and the ASEAN has received a successful result.

At the China-ASEAN Summit held in Bangkok, Thailand in early August this year, the ASEAN member countries present at the summit kept a positive attitude to the prospective of relationship between China and the ASEAN. Khin Maung Lynn stressed that China’s development provides an opportunity to the ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific areas.

The ASEAN should strengthen cooperation of interconnection and interworking so as to provide convenience for business, investment, tourism and non-governmental exchanges between China and the ASEAN and promote the construction of China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone.

After 30 years of hard work, China has become the world’s second largest economy, but this power is not the so-called threat to regional security some western countries have described. Also facts prove that China is going ahead on the path of peaceful development and its achievements have benefited neighboring countries.

Khin Maung Lynn told the author excitedly that the Chinese navy and the “Peace Ark” hospital ship had just visited Myanmar. A Buddhist who received free medical treatment on the hospital ship said that Chinese doctor cured him with traditional Chinese medicine for free, saving him a huge expense of 300,000 Kyats.

source: Daily Economic
http://www.dailyeconomic.com/2013/Asia-Pacific_0925/1856.html