BEIJING, Dec. 20 -- As an old Chinese saying goes, a good neighbor is not to be traded for gold. Following Chinese leaders' footsteps in 2014, it is highly evident that the rising Asian country fully recognizes and cherishes the value of good-neighborliness.

The new leadership of China has proposed "closeness, sincerity, sharing and inclusiveness" as the key features of its good-neighborliness diplomacy, and it is demonstrably putting the new initiatives into practice.

Probably nowhere else is this more keenly felt than in Southeast Asia, where the continued rise of China as an active, responsible regional player is offering the promise of lasting peace and prosperity.

With Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Thailand for a triennial summit of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Economic Cooperation, the Asian neighbors are facing new opportunities to further close ranks and strive for win-win cooperation.

Under the GMS mechanism, which was initiated 22 years ago, China and five Southeast Asian countries sharing the Mekong River -- namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- have collaborated closely with each other to unleash the great untapped potential of the subregion.

Currently, GMS cooperation spans 10 fields from transportation, energy, agriculture, tourism to trade facilitation and involves 92 priority projects, bringing about tangible benefits to the peoples there.

Undeniably, it is China's active participation and growing pragmatism in regional cooperation that has brought the GMS alive, and enabled its visions to be translated into concrete actions, though there is still a long way to go before full realization of the GMS ambitions.

The past two decades have witnessed a flurry of China-backed initiatives on promoting GMS cooperation. At the fifth summit of the GMS Economic Cooperation, to be held on Saturday, China will continue to play a leading role and put forward a basket of new proposals on regional inter-connectivity, investment and waterway regulation, economic-corridor cooperation, among others.

Meanwhile, Li's attendance at the summit also demonstrates China's political will to boost mutual trust and dispel misgivings of some Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam.

Stressing security as a guarantee for GMS cooperation, China is also spearheading concerted efforts to maintain peace and security in the Asian subregion plagued by an array of transnational crimes such as drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Following the killing of 13 Chinese sailors in the opium-producing Golden Triangle in 2011, China has initiated and conducted regular joint patrols with Laos, Myanmar and Thailand on the Mekong River to secure safety of the busy trading route.

On a broader scale, the GMS mechanism is viewed as an important complement to China's relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Its cooperation with the five GMS countries, which happen to be the least developed countries in ASEAN, will help facilitate balanced development of the bloc, thus accelerating regional integration.