BALI, Indonesia, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Friday attended the consultation of East Asia Summit foreign ministers and called for further cooperation for future development.
The minister said the East Asia Summit should closely follow the theme of development and China is willing to work with other parties to promote cooperation in education, finance, energy, public health and disaster management, as well as regional connectivity and food security.
He also proposed further mutual trust and settlement of disputes through negotiations. He said new concept of security should be nurtured and put into practice and that an individual country's domestic problems or issues concerning specific disputes between countries should be avoided.
Yang said the East Asia Summit should put the emphasis of political security dialogue and cooperation on non-traditional security issues.
The East Asia Summit is expected to follow ASEAN's leading role, and stick to consultation and making progress at a proper pace, while taking every party's comfort into consideration, he said. The summit should also maintain openness and realize coordinated development with other cooperation mechanisms to provide guidance for regional cooperation, Yang said.
This year, the United States and Russia will officially join the East Asia Summit. Yang said the addition of the two countries will provide the summit with broader strategic significance and that the Chinese side hopes the enlarged summit will stick to its nature of "leaders-led" strategic forum to contribute more to peace, stability and prosperity of East Asia.
The minister said Asia has become the area which enjoys the fastest and most energetic economic development in the world, bringing confidence for other countries to overcome the financial crisis and speed up recovery. In 2010, Asia contributed 50 percent to the world's economic growth. And China made its due contribution to Asia's development.
As to the situation in the Korean Peninsula, Yang stressed that China has been committed to maintaining peace and stability of the peninsula as well as realizing denuclearization on the peninsula through dialogue and negotiation.
China welcomes every related party's effort to promote the dialogue and also welcomes the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and South Korea to carry out dialogue, he said, adding that China is willing to work with related parties and the international community to promote the resumption of six-party talks as soon as possible.
The foreign ministers attending the consultation welcomed the first participation of the United States and Russia. They said the summit needs to continue consolidating and expanding the cooperation on the basis of the leadership of ASEAN.
