Conference on China-ASEAN friendship opens

The Seventh Conference on China-ASEAN People-to-People Friendship Organizations was open in Vietnam's capital Hanoi on Thursday, with participation of Vietnamese high-ranking officials and representatives from ten ASEAN member countries' friendship associations with China.

"In 2012, we celebrate the 45th founding anniversary of ASEAN and the 21st anniversary of the ASEAN-China strategic dialogue relations," said Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan at the opening ceremony.

He also said, the ASEAN-China relation is one of the most effective and dynamic relations between ASEAN and its partners, and strengthening all-sided and constructive ASEAN-China relations is not only beneficial to peace and prosperity in Southeast Asia, but also to peace, stability and development in the region.

Vietnam will continue to try, together with other ASEAN countries and China, to promote relations, cooperation and friendship between the two sides in all areas, the deputy PM stressed.

President of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Associations (VUFA) Vu Xuan Hong delivered a speech to open the two-day conference, which is themed, "Solidarity, Friendship, Cooperation and Development", saying it is an opportunity for participants to exchange experience and measures to promote friendship and cooperation among ASEAN member countries and China, contributing to make people of those countries live in prosperity in the coming time.

The VUFA and the Vietnam-China Friendship Association, in cooperation with the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the China-Vietnam Friendship Association have organized many activities of significance and with effective impacts to people of the two countries.

Those people-to-people external activities have contributed to developing the Vietnam-China relations in lines with the two countries' comprehensive and cooperative strategic partnership, and making solid foundation for bilateral ties at present and in the future, Hong said.

Gu Xiulian, vice-chairwoman of China's National People's Congress Standing Committee, president of the China-ASEAN Association, and head of the Chinese delegation to the conference, said that over the past 20 years since ASEAN and China have established dialogue relations, development of peace, cooperation and friendship is always the main flow in the bilateral ties.

In recent years, China-ASEAN relations became closer, with two- way trade turnover surpassed 360 billion U.S. dollars; visitors to one another' countries reached 13 million, and exchange of cooperation has brought practical benefits to both China and ASEAN countries, said Gu Xiulian.

In its external policies, China attaches importance to developing relations with neighboring countries, including ASEAN countries, and determines to follow the unchangeable path for peace. China's diplomatic motto "being friendly with neighbors, making friends with neighbors" is unchangeable, said Gu Xiulian, adding that China's development is an opportunity to ASEAN, and ASEAN's development is also an opportunity to China.

The First Conference on China-ASEAN People-to-People Friendship Organizations was held in Beijing in May 2006, with common commitment to build China-ASEAN relations of peace, friendship and solidarity, and cooperation for social, economic and cultural development. The following conferences were held rotationally by ASEAN member countries.