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China’s prominent role in ASEAN and the G20
Chinese vaccines helped many countries to recover from the COVID-19 crisis and now many of them, especially those in ASEAN, have reopened their borders.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) shakes hands with President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo as he arrives for the G20 leaders' summit in Nusa Dua, Bali on Nov. 15, 2022.
(AFP/Mast Irham)
There are constantly varying viewpoints when discussing China's place in ASEAN and the Group of 20 because certain ASEAN members and some members of the European Union enjoy excellent relations with China while others do not, despite the fact that these nations depend on China the most economically. The ASEAN and EU nations have mixed feelings toward China.
The China-ASEAN relationship has advanced significantly. China has established a number of "firsts" among ASEAN dialogue partners, including being the first to join the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, the first to establish a strategic partnership with ASEAN, the first to discuss establishing a free trade zone with ASEAN, the first to express unambiguous support for ASEAN's central role in regional cooperation and the first to publicly declare its willingness to sign the Protocol to the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.
Together, China and ASEAN have grown to be the largest trading partners, most powerful allies and most dynamic strategic allies in the area. They have also served as an important cornerstone for the peace, stability and development of the region.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, China and ASEAN have helped one another out and cooperated to protect practical collaboration. Fast tracks and green lanes have been developed by China and numerous ASEAN nations to ease the flow of people and commodities and stabilize regional supply and manufacturing chains.
In contrast to the trend of declining global trade, China-ASEAN trade and investment have defied expectations and increased in both scale and quality, strongly supporting the region's economic recovery and enriching and energizing it.
China has pledged to make its COVID-19 vaccines global public goods since the pandemic began early in 2020. China is carrying out its commitment by donating its COVID-19 vaccines to as many nations as possible. Experts from numerous fields have been quite interested in and engaged in discussions about this. Chinese vaccines helped many countries to recover from the crisis and now many of them, especially those in ASEAN, have reopened their borders. The Chinese vaccines have also been recognized worldwide.
The first seven months of 2022 saw the value of trade between China and the ASEAN increase by 13.1 percent year-on-year (yoy) to US$544.9 billion.
Being neighbors gives ASEAN and China many advantages to foster cooperation and promote prosperity and peace between the two sides. On the other hand, there will always be quarrels among neighbors. Even husbands and wives, who are meant to be together forever, occasionally bargain or argue with one another for various reasons.
Because both China and the ASEAN nations are emerging economies, their degrees of economic growth and industrial structures are comparable; both have export-oriented economies that rely on international trade. Both compete on the basis of natural resource advantages and lower labor costs and both encourage domestic economic development by luring international investment and technology. As a result, there is competition between the two parties on the global market, however, China does not want to compete with ASEAN. Rather, China just wants to support those ASEAN countries with its resources.
Since the creation of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, the two parties have gradually eliminated tariff and non-tariff restrictions for the majority of products. The ASEAN-China partnership has been successful in lowering or eliminating trade barriers, accomplishing trade liberalization and generating a trade diversion effect between China and ASEAN nations. The service industry and investment markets have also been steadily expanded.
China considers the Group of 20 the best framework for its participation in global governance. The G20 serves as the main forum for global economic governance, and by joining the G20 China gained the opportunity to represent a responsible power within global economic governance. China can also take this chance to be a model of an international law follower.
In 2008 and 2009, China actively contributed to the macroeconomic coordination that helped the international economy recover from the global financial crisis. The G20 is an excellent platform for China to show that it is a responsible big power, connect with other major nations and maintain relations with them at the leaders' level. China responded to the global financial crisis in a very positive and cooperative manner, joining the United States and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in asking for significant fiscal stimulus across the board for the G20.
It is important to note that neither the US nor Canada committed financial support, signaling a potential shift in the direction of the world's monetary authority. China continued to advocate for attempts to push international financial system reform by increasing the voting shares of developing nations at the IMF and the World Bank. Inside the G20. China has continued to make its own recommendations for attaining "strong, sustainable and balanced growth". China reaps benefits and contributes a lot to the G20 in numerous ways through its participation in the world’s largest 20 economies.
All things considered, countries should alter how they perceive China and should look at it positively in order to appropriately assess it.
After all, China is a nation that has largely contributed covertly to peace and economic growth in the region and across the globe.
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The writer is a policy analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia. The views expressed are his own.
