China and neighboring countries' cooperation shows promising prospects

The year 2023 witnessed fruitful outcomes of collaboration between China and its neighboring countries, experts said, predicting such cooperation will continue to deepen comprehensively next year.

In the past year, China's collaboration with neighboring countries, which has been guided by head-of-state diplomacy, supported by pragmatic cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, has achieved breakthrough progress in various aspects, said Xu Liping, a researcher at the National Institute of International Strategy of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"For example, China has made great progress in terms of building a community of shared future between China and its neighboring countries," he said.

In December, China and Vietnam issued a joint statement on further deepening and elevating their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, as well as building a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance.

Earlier this year, during Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's visit to China, the two sides reached a consensus on building a China-Malaysia community with a shared future.

"Overall, the relationship between China and its neighboring countries maintains a positive trend, with the ability to deal with external intervention improving and the willingness for pragmatic cooperation growing," said Xu.

"The development of China's relations with its neighboring countries is built on sincerity and mutual benefit. Neighboring countries can genuinely feel the benefits in their interactions with China, which helps the continuously positive development of their relations with China," said Lyu Guixia, a researcher at the Institute of World History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

The remarks were made at a symposium held on Dec 29 in Beijing for the release of the Development Report on the Relations Between China and Neighboring Countries 2023 compiled by the Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Science.

The report points out that trade and investment ties between China and its neighboring nations have shown an upward trajectory. The RCEP agreement, which has created the world's largest trading bloc, has greatly facilitated trade and investment in the region.

"In 2024, sub-regional economic and trade cooperation between China and its neighboring countries will become more in-depth and substantial, such as the Lancang-Mekong cooperation," said Xu.

On Monday, the Five-Year Action Plan for Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (2023-27) and the joint initiative on building the Lancang-Mekong innovative corridor were just issued to boost the development of Lancang-Mekong cooperation.

"Additionally, negotiations for the 3.0 version of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement may conclude in 2024. Once the new agreement is reached, it could further promote pragmatic cooperation between China and its neighboring countries in areas such as the green economy, digital economy, and e-commerce," said Xu.

"To sum up, although China and its neighboring countries will still face challenges brought by external major powers' intervention in 2024, the prospects for their future collaboration are quite bright," he said.