On April 8, 2009, Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue held a briefing for the Chinese and foreign media, introducing Premier Wen Jiabao's upcoming attendance at the 12th ASEAN Plus China Summit (10+1), the 12th ASEAN Plus China, Japan and ROK Summit (10+3), the 4th East Asia Summit (EAS) and the breakfast meeting of China-Japan-ROK leaders in Pattaya, Thailand from April 10 to 12. Deputy Director-General Qin Gang of the Information Department hosted the briefing.

Hu said that the continuous spreading and deepening of the international financial crisis is influencing Asia negatively. The Asian economy slows down and countries in the region universally face severe challenges. Meanwhile, East Asian countries have shown the strong aspiration of strengthening cooperation to tide over the difficulties. During the Asia-Europe Summit in October last year, the 10+3 leaders, at the invitation of Premier Wen, held a breakfast meeting in Beijing and conducted fruitful discussions on the international financial situation and East Asian cooperation. A special meeting of financial ministers of 10+3 held in February this year announced the Action Plan to Restore Economic and Financial Stability of the Asian Region and decided to push forward the process of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation and expand the regional foreign exchange pool from US$80 billion to US$120 billion. Not long ago ASEAN successfully held the 14th summit and expressed the determination of joining hand in hand to face up to the challenges. The upcoming series of meetings of East Asian leaders are important activities on regional cooperation of Asia after the second financial summit of G20 leaders. East Asian leaders will exchange views on further reinforcing East Asian cooperation to cope with the financial crisis. People in East Asia hold high expectation on the event and hope to see fruitful results.

He noted that China attaches great importance to the relations with ASEAN. To strengthen the good-neighborly friendship and promote the all-round mutually beneficial cooperation with ASEAN are major parts of China's foreign policy with neighboring countries. Since the launch of East Asian cooperation, China has been actively participating in the cooperation under the frameworks of 10+1, 10+3, China-Japan-ROK and the EAS in a highly responsible attitude. The Chinese leaders have attended the series of meetings of East Asian leaders over the years. Premier Wen's upcoming attendance at the East Asian leaders' meetings is a major diplomatic activity with the neighboring countries under the current circumstances and will exert a positive and far-reaching influence on promoting East Asian cooperation. Premier Wen will deliver key remarks during the meetings to comprehensively expound China's opinions and proposition on enhancing the pragmatic cooperation in East Asia and jointly addressing the international financial crisis. He will also meet with a number of participating national leaders respectively.

Hu stressed that China pays great attention to the upcoming meetings of East Asian leaders and will take an active part in the discussions on the future cooperation. China is ready to make joint efforts with all the parties concerned to achieve concrete outcomes, boost the confidence of development of Asian countries, promote the pragmatic cooperation in East Asia, maintain the interest of developing countries and overcome the challenges posed by the international financial crisis. China has high expectation on the meetings from the following three perspectives:

First, participating parties should carry forward the glorious tradition of Asian countries of pulling together in times of trouble and tiding over the difficulties jointly, exchange in-depth views on tackling the international financial crisis in the spirit of facing up to the challenges and promoting win-win cooperation, discuss the major measures they have taken respectively to handle the crisis and look forward to the future of Asian development so as to boost confidence, broaden consensus, concentrate resources, reinforce cooperation and send a positive message to the rest of the world.

Second, the goals of ASEAN integration and building an ASEAN Community should be supported firmly. As a major force of promoting regional peace and development, ASEAN plays a leading role in East Asian cooperation. It is of great importance to East Asian stability and prosperity that an ASEAN Community is established comprising of political and security cooperation, economic cooperation, and socio-cultural cooperation. To that end, parties concerned should support ASEAN in implementing the ASEAN Charter, pushing forward the integration process and narrowing down the development gap and particularly focus on assisting the less developed members of ASEAN.

Third, the cooperation under 10+1, 10+3, China-Japan-ROK and the EAS should be deepened. Such cooperation mechanisms are the major platforms of East Asian cooperation and important channels for East Asian countries to increase mutual trust and engage in cooperation. We hope to exchange opinions and suggestions with other relevant parties on deepening the pragmatic cooperation under those mechanisms, raise the good-neighborly friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation to a new level and make the nations and people in the region benefit more from the fruitful cooperation of East Asia.

As to the new approaches and measures of China to intensify cooperation with ASEAN in the face of the international financial crisis, Hu said that the crisis is a serious test to both China and ASEAN. We should support each other to overcome difficulties just like how we coped with the 1997 financial crisis.

First, countries should first and foremost keep their own house clean. They should take active and effective measures to maintain their domestic financial stability and ensure the development of their domestic economy, which is very important to increasing confidence and lifting the region out of the shadow of financial crisis.

Second, the building of China-ASEAN free trade zone should be sped up. The trade volume of China and ASEAN last year exceeded US$230 billion, up 14% over the previous year and making up 9% of China's total foreign trade volume. Both sides should make continuous efforts to maintain the momentum of increase of trade volume, or at least prevent it from dropping sharply. A bright spot of the upcoming meetings will be the signing of China-ASEAN Investment Agreement, which marks the completion of China-ASEAN free trade zone negotiations. The construction of the free trade zone which benefits 1.9 billion of population will be completed in 2010.

Third, investment should be increased, especially the investment from China to ASEAN members. China's investment in ASEAN members has grown rapidly in recent years and the accumulated investment volume has reached about US$6 billion this year. It is very important for both sides to increase mutual investment in order to cope with the financial crisis. China will launch a number of initiatives and measures to continue to encourage Chinese businesses to invest in ASEAN region, including providing them with strong financial support.

Fourth, cooperation in the field of infrastructure construction, including railways, roads, airports and bridges should be further promoted. The preparations for and discussions on some projects are well underway.

Fifth, China will, as always, support ASEAN's efforts of integration and narrowing down the development gap. China is willing to consider increasing assistance to the less developed members of ASEAN and hopes such assistance will help them overcome the current difficulties.

Sixth, tourism cooperation should be pushed forward. China and ASEAN enjoy close tourism cooperation. Under the current situation, the two sides should take tourism as one of the key areas of cooperation and adopt effective measures to push forward such cooperation.

Seventh, financial cooperation should be deepened. We should expand the foreign exchange pool and promote the financial cooperation under the Chiang Mai framework. Recently, China signed the bilateral currency swap agreement with Indonesia and Malaysia worth RMB110 billion and RMB80 billion respectively. We are open to other ASEAN members in this regard and willing to discuss with them if they have such requirement.

Eighth, China will continue to speak on behalf of the developing countries including ASEAN members on the international occasions, appealing to the international community to pay attention to the developing countries' concerns, increase their representation and voice and jointly safeguard their interest.