More dialogue, less disputes, enhanced cooperation

The 4th East Asia Summit (EAS) was held in Hua Hin, Thailand on Sunday, where (ASEAN) Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders and their counterparts from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK), India, Australia and New Zealand met from last Friday to Sunday to discuss regional cooperation topics of vital importance, such as the financial crisis, food and energy security, climate change, calamities wrought by weather aberration that effect the entire world, as well as the building of East Asian community.

The 15th ASEAN Summit and the 4th EAS constitute an extremely vital gathering since the outbreak of the global financial crisis occurred in 2008. So the most crucial of all at the summit is to make a correct appraisal of the current situation in response to the financial crisis. At present, countries in the East Asia regions are facing hindered exports, which have caused an unfavorable balance of trade, reduced economic growth rates, monetary market upheavals and the rising unemployment. So, all countries in the region have stepped up their efforts to cope with the crisis while working diligently to seek regional and international cooperation. During the recent summit, leaders of ASEAN nations and other East Asian countries reviewed the efforts they had made in the past year and set forth new proposals and measures on enhancing their cooperation, turning the crisis into opportunities and voiced maximally to "taking the stock" of the situation.

The serial ASEAN meetings happened to convene in conjunction timely with the incoming summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit (APEC), which is to be held one month later. Consequently, it can indeed be said as another expression of "judging the hour and sizing up the situation," as a very popular Chinese saying goes.

The serial meetings have proven a great opportunity to further reinforce the mutual trust and spur regional cooperation. East Asia, which is showing increasing vitality, has become one of the leading global economic powers. Today, the open intra-regionalism has turned stronger in trade relations inside East Asia, and Asian policy makers, nevertheless, have realized that it has been an overall trend that stronger intra-regionalism and constructive multilateral cooperation can integrate into the regional free trade against the overall perspective of (economic) globalization.

Some unilateral tendencies have turned apparent and obvious over recent months. For example, some countries have turned to practice for protecting their own economies, some countries are not so enthusiastic or interested to involve themselves into trade arrangements made in favor of developing nations, whereas some other countries have gone so far as to stir up their national sentiments.

Under such circumstances, it seems quite normal for countries to have controversy or disputes, but the basic orientation for seeking mutual trust and cooperation between nations in the region cannot never waver or vacillate. The 4th East Asia summit held in Hua Hin on October 24, as declared the Chinese government, was a trip to cooperation, a trip to seeking confidence and a trip to boosting economic development, as indicated by the sincerity of the Chinese government to conduct more dialogues and fewer disputes and show more reinforced cooperation.

However, it has been no plain sailing as a matter of fact for the annual meetings of East Asia to sustain or persist to date and, therefore, the road heading for "harmony and cooperation" should be adhered to.

The East Asia Summit was one for increasing substantiality and seeking truth from facts, and the meetings held this year has reaped particular substantiality than the previous one held in 2008. At the Conference on May 4 of 10 ASEAN nations plus China, Japan and ROK, their leaders reached agreement on the Asian Regional Foreign Exchange (FOREX) Reserve Pool, the total size of which is 120 billion US dollars and, substantial progress was also made in the "Chang Mai Initiative".

The 4th EAS Summit this year has provided an important opportunity to accelerate the formal establishment and operation of the 10+3 regional reserve pool prior to the end of 2009. The current annual East Asia summit listed food security and energy security as one priority of the 10+3 Asian nations, whose leaders have appealed for seeking the balance between the food grains and fuel-use farm crops, so as to beef up the cooperation in the energy sector. Furthermore, the response to climate change and enhanced cooperation against natural calamities has also been a focal point for leaders of East Asian nations.

During the summit, ASEAN leaders reaffirmed in a statement the position in the negotiations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), so as to make even more and greater contributions to the day-to-day substantial wellbeing of people in the whole region.

By People's Daily Online and contributed by Professor Zhang Xuegang, director of the Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations