Cooperation, development sought to build harmonious Asia
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Xinhua, December 27, 2011
As the year of 2011 ends, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping's just-completed official visit to Vietnam and Thailand have garnered world attention.
Xi's trip, aimed at strengthening China's relations with countries in the neighboring region, has been closely followed by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's visit to China.
In the outgoing year, the world underwent complex and profound changes, as did the situation in China's neighboring region.
Over the past year, China has remained committed to consolidating and developing its good-neighborly foreign relations with neighboring countries, aimed at securing regional stability and development.
Looking into the next year, a good-neighbor policy and win-win cooperation are sure to dominate China's foreign policy in its handling of relations with neighboring countries.
Win-win cooperation
China's relationship with its neighbors in 2011 featured a number of highlights, including the signing of a series of bilateral agreements, the establishment of cooperation mechanisms, flourishing bilateral trade and strengthened win-win cooperation.
To date, China has signed bilateral friendly agreements with almost all its neighboring countries and established multilateral or bilateral regular meeting mechanisms.
On top of that, a total of 19 border treaties and 22 protocols concerning boundary settlement and joint inspection have been signed between China and other countries, settling the demarcation of 20,000 km of boundaries.
Almost two years after the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) came into effect on Jan. 1, 2010, bilateral trade is in full swing.
China has become ASEAN's largest trading partner and ASEAN remains China's third largest trading partner with an average annual growth rate of more than 20 percent. Trade between China and ASEAN has grown 37-fold since 1991.
In 2010, two-way trade between China and Japan neared an all-time high of 300 billion U.S. dollars and that between China and South Korea also hit a record high of 200 billion dollars.
When it comes to mutually beneficial cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has provided an excellent example.
To deter drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, the SCO member countries have held joint anti-terrorism exercises, safeguarding the region's peace and stability.
At the just-concluded Fourth Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit, leaders of six Asian countries -- China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- thrashed out new ideas on stoking growth based on equality and consultation, setting another model for regional cooperation.
