Vice-President Han Zheng urged China and Southeast Asia to deepen their strategic alignment on Wednesday, as Beijing pushes to upgrade its free trade area agreement with the region amid the US trade war.
The world’s second-largest economy aims to “strengthen the alignment of development strategies and tighten the bonds of our shared community” with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Han said in his opening address at the China-Asean Expo in the southwestern Chinese city of Nanning.
The two sides will also continue to “expand cooperation in emerging industries” and explore potential “collaboration in frontier sectors such as artificial intelligence”, he added at the event, which runs September 17-21.
The remarks come as Beijing strives to present itself as Southeast Asia’s most reliable economic partner at a time when US protectionist policies are putting exporters from both sides under intense pressure.
China and Asean have been each other’s largest trading partners for several years, and the region has become even more vital to China’s trade strategy amid the US tariff war. Chinese exports to the bloc have soared – rising 22.5 per cent year on year in August alone – helping to offset a slump in shipments to the United States.
