Chinese FM on 10+3 Mechanism

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, July 31, 2002

Chinese FM on 10+3 Mechanism

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In the new round of cooperation under the regional trends of peace and development, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan and South Korea (10+3) mechanism enjoys great progress and bright future, said Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan.

"The annual 10+3 summit has become one of the grandest gatherings of the region and the establishment of six relevant ministerial meeting mechanisms of foreign affairs, finance, economy, agriculture and forestry, tourism and labor has given a strong boost to the cooperation in relevant fields," he said at the annual meet of 10+3 foreign ministers.

The 10+3 mechanism facilitates dialogue and cooperation betweenASEAN members including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and the bloc's three northeast Asian dialogue partners China, Japan and South Korea.

The 10+3 financial cooperation, in particular, has made substantive progress, said Tang.

"The East Asia Vision Group and East Asia Study Group have supplied many new ideas for the growth of 10+3 cooperation, which now serves as an important engine for regional cooperation in Asia," he noted.

Tang pointed out that the reason why the 10+3 cooperation has witnessed fairly fast development is that the participants, proceeding from the need to cope with the challenges brought by globalization, attach more importance to regional cooperation and take 10+3 as their priority.

"Secondly, the 10+3 cooperation focuses on the fields where consensus has been reached, especially in economic cooperation, thus meeting the needs of all sides," he said.

"Third, ASEAN has given a strong impetus to the cooperation, which in many fields has been developed on the basis of existing cooperation within ASEAN," Tang said.

However, he said it should be noted that the cooperative mechanism is still at its early stage and the overall cooperation is yet to reach a higher level.

"To further upgrade the cooperation level and maintain the momentum of constant growth amidst the development and changes of times is the major issue that the 10+3 faces," said Tang.

To advance the mechanism, Tang said that in China's point of view, the 10+3 should first gradually explore new fields for cooperation while focusing on economic cooperation.

"In the aftermath of the September 11 incidents, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji proposed at last year's 10+3 summit to phase inpolitical and security cooperation and to begin with cooperation in non-traditional security fields," he said.

In this regard, Tang said China suggested a 10+3 Ministerial Meeting on Combating Transnational Crimes, which has won preliminary endorsement on the 10+3 Senior Officials' Meeting last May.

"We hope it will be supported at this meeting so that it will be submitted for approval and adoption at this year's 10+3 summit," he said.

Secondly, Tang said it is necessary to further strengthen coordinating among cooperation mechanisms and China, Japan and South Korea should enhance exchanges on development of their respective cooperation with ASEAN.

"China supports the establishment of the 10+3 meeting mechanismat the competent Foreign Ministry Director-General Level and the strengthening of the 10+3 Senior Foreign Officials Meeting," he said.

Finally, the minister said participating countries need to boost the overall cooperation in East Asia with the 10+3 as the main channel.

"As the 10+3 grows, countries in the region have reached broader agreement with a stronger awareness of the need for cooperation and in this connection, the Chinese side is in favor of exchanging views on such concepts as the East Asian Summit and the East Asia Free Trade Area," he said.

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