Arise! China: ASEAN

Showing posts with label ASEAN. Show all posts

Friday, 5 August 2022

China foreign minister slams Pelosi's Taiwan trip in ASEAN meet

Southeast Asian FMs warn of 'open conflicts' as Beijing starts live-fire drills

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends the ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Phnom Penh on Aug. 4. © AP

CLIFF VENZON, Nikkei staff writerAugust 4, 2022 22:56 JSTUpdated on August 5, 2022 00:32 JST

PHNOM PENH -- China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday hit out at U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan during his meeting with his Southeast Asian counterparts, who are wary of cross-strait tensions turning into "open conflicts."

In a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang said the visit was a "blatant provocation" and branded the U.S. the "biggest destroyer of peace in the Taiwan Strait and the biggest troublemaker for regional stability."

Wang also called Pelosi's Taiwan trip a "manic, irresponsible, and extremely irrational action" by the U.S.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers, in a statement on Thursday, said they were "concerned" about the ongoing cross-strait tensions, noting that they are occurring next door to Southeast Asia.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations warned that the developments could "destabilize the region and eventually could lead to miscalculation, serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among major powers."

China launched live-fire military drills in areas surrounding Taiwan on Thursday to demonstrate its fury over Pelosi's meeting with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen the previous day. Beijing had earlier imposed trade restrictions on Taipei.

China, which considers self-ruled Taiwan part of its territory, has fiercely opposed the visit, the first by a U.S. House speaker in 25 years, fearing it could embolden Taiwan to rebuff Beijing's reunification efforts.

In a separate meeting with ASEAN ministers on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the Taiwan issue. He said Washington remains committed to its "One China" policy and that it has reached out to Beijing "at every level of government" to ease tensions.

"I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity," Blinken said.

"We and countries around the world believe that escalation serves no one and could have unintended consequences that serve no one's interests, including ASEAN members, and including China."

ASEAN has appealed for "maximum restraint," and urged parties to refrain from provocative actions. "We reiterate ASEAN member states' respective 'One China' policy," the 10-member bloc said.

Wang also met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday and discussed the issue. Wang said the "provocative act of the U.S. side on the Taiwan question is not accidental, but a carefully planned farce, which exposes its ugly face of treachery," Xinhua reported.

Cambodia, this year's ASEAN chair, is hosting a series of foreign ministerial meetings through Friday, when Wang and Blinken are likely to join the ASEAN Regional Forum security talks.

Southeast Asia is central to the U.S.-China strategic competition and Pelosi's visit to Taiwan became a key issue as the ASEAN foreign ministers opened their meetings on Wednesday.

In a statement the same day, Singapore said it hoped that the U.S. and China can "work out a modus vivendi, exercise self-restraint and refrain from actions that will further escalate tensions."

"Stable U.S.-China relations are vital for regional peace and prosperity," Singapore's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/China-foreign-minister-slams-Pelosi-s-Taiwan-trip-in-ASEAN-meet?

Friday, 27 May 2022

Biden’s IPEF a signal to China it wants better ‘balance of power’ in region

From Singapore to Malaysia and Philippines, Asean’s interest in Biden’s IPEF a signal to China it wants better ‘balance of power’ in region

After Trump withdrew the US from the TPP, Washington’s economic disengagement from the region had enabled China to ‘grow its economic footprint in Asia unhindered’

The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is being viewed by the region as a chance for the US to ‘regain a foothold in the region’, both economically and politically

Maria Siow

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Published: 5:00pm, 27 May, 2022

US President Joe Biden, India’s PM Narendra Modi and Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida at the IPEF
launch event in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

The move by seven Asean states to sign up for Washington’s new trade pact, even as few details about the deal are known, is not only a signal of support for US re-engagement with the region but a bid to better ensure the balance of power in the neighbourhood, analysts say.

Last week, US President Joe Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), a pact that covers supply chains, digital trade, clean energy and anti-corruption efforts.

Twelve economies in the Asia-Pacific signed up at its launch, with the participating countries saying in a joint statement that the IPEF would help prepare them for the future following disruptions caused by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Of Asean’s 10 members, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam came on board. The others who joined were Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, with all participating economies accounting for 40 per cent of the world’s GDP, according to the White House.

Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said many Association of Southeast Asian Nations members had signed on even though the proposed deal was “less than what they might have hoped for”.

“(They) are clearly keen to support the effort by the US to re-engage with the region after the disastrous episode with the Trump administration,” Menon said, referring to former US president Donald Trump’s decision to exit the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017.

Tan See Seng, research adviser at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said the US’ withdrawal from the TPP was “an educational moment for the Asian region”.

Noting that American ambivalence towards the pact was bipartisan, Tan said Washington’s economic disengagement from the region had enabled China to “grow its economic footprint in Asia unhindered”.

“Against this backdrop, I think Asian countries see the IPEF as America’s attempt to regain a foothold in the region, not just economically, but more crucially, politically,” Tan said. “Participation in the IPEF is a signal to China that some Asian states much prefer a balance of power and influence in the Indo-Pacific region.”

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Wednesday described the IPEF as an attempt to disrupt regional cooperation and a tool of coercion.

Earlier in May, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused the US of sowing division in the region, while on Monday he underlined China’s commitment to economic development in the Asia-Pacific region.

China’s nationalistic tabloid Global Times said on Tuesday that as the IPEF had not been approved by the US Congress, its political sustainability was in question since it was unclear “whether the Biden administration can be re-elected”.

Ngeow Chow Bing, director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya, said it was unsurprising that the seven Asean countries would “sign up first and talk later”, as there were “no significant harm, risks or costs” involved.

“Joining at this stage has almost zero costs, but not joining will risk them being seen by the US as being ‘in China’s pocket’ and will lose them other opportunities in the future,” Ngeow said, adding that since IPEF was about economic matters, Asean countries likely thought that China would not react too strongly.

Aaron Rabena, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said the seven Asean states were eager to capitalise on economic opportunities with the US wherever possible.

“These countries also want the US to be felt economically in the region as it seems to be the missing link in the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy,” Rabena said, referring to Washington’s strategy of building a free and open region, bolstering security and building resilience, with an eye on China as a threat.

Asean holdouts

Apart from geopolitical reasons, the absence of the three remaining Asean members – Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – is due to these countries’ transitional economic status from central planning to free markets, Menon said.

These Asean members would find it difficult or costly to deal with some of the trade rules and standards involved, Menon said, adding that it also explained why they were not members of the CPTPP or other trade agreements with higher standards.

The successor to the TPP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has 11 member countries and came into effect in 2018. It has high standards for investment, financial services, intellectual property, the environment and labour rights.

Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, said while Washington was not currently offering market access in the form of lower tariffs, this did not mean that there would be no market benefits available.

“Some members might benefit from expedited processing of goods at the border or from improved access to testing facilities and easier qualification for products,” Elms said, adding that these could be important for companies and might be included in the IPEF later on.

“It’s just not certain at the moment,” Elms said. She pointed out that the US may not have tried to attract Phnom Penh and Vientiane, as given their status as Least Developed Countries, they already had market access benefits into the US unlike other Asean members.

Protectionist sentiments in the US have prevented market access which is commonly found in trade deals or free-trade agreements.

Tan from RSIS said the Cambodian and Laos economies were so reliant on China that there was “no perceptible need for them to look to the US”, especially since the US had been highly critical of Cambodian leader Hun Sen’s crackdown on domestic opposition in his country.

Ngeow from the University of Malaya said the three least-developed Asean members were perceived by the US as “not sufficiently distant from China, and hence do not deserve to be ‘rewarded’ in a US-led initiative”.

Economic ties between China and Asean have grown rapidly over the years, with trade in goods ballooning from just US$9 billion in 1991, to US$685 billion in 2020. Last year, China’s direct investment in Asean reached US$14.4 billion.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3179436/singapore-malaysia-and-philippines-aseans-interest-bidens-ipef?

Thursday, 26 May 2022

Blinken calls China ‘most serious long-term’ threat to world order

“Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress,” the secretary of State said.

By QUINT FORGEY and PHELIM KINE

05/26/2022 12:04 PM EDT

Updated: 05/26/2022 05:11 PM EDT

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday outlined competing visions for the future of the international community: one centered around China’s increasingly aggressive and expansive authoritarian one-party state, and another anchored by President Joe Biden’s conception of a bulwark of allies and partners committed to democracy, human rights and the “international rules-based order.”

The Biden administration, Blinken said, has spent its first year in office working to ensure the latter. In an address at the George Washington University, he argued that Washington “has developed and implemented a comprehensive strategy” toward Beijing “to harness our national strengths and our unmatched network of allies and partners to realize the future that we seek.”

“China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it,” Blinken said. “Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years.”

Blinken’s assertion of an existential U.S.-China competition over the future of the international system resonated on Capitol Hill.

“We have to compete effectively with China because it’s become increasingly clear we have different visions — for whether the world should be safer for democracy or authoritarianism … and for whether the strong can bully the weak,’' Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told POLITICO. “We have no choice but to compete because the world of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s vision would be unacceptable.”

Blinken — who was scheduled to deliver his remarks on May 5, but was forced to postpone after testing positive for Covid-19 the previous day — went on to insist that the United States is not “looking for conflict or a new Cold War. To the contrary, we’re determined to avoid both.”

“We don’t seek to block China from its role as a major power, nor to stop China — or any country, for that matter — from growing their economy or advancing the interests of their people,” Blinken said. “But we will defend and strengthen the international law, agreements, principles, and institutions that maintain peace and security, protect the rights of individuals and sovereign nations, and make it possible for all countries — including the United States and China — to coexist and cooperate.”

Despite their divergent outlooks, the United States and China will “have to deal with each other for the foreseeable future,” Blinken continued. “That’s why this is one of the most complex and consequential relationships of any we have in the world today.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C.’s response to Blinken’s speech didn’t address its specific content, but echoed his assessment of challenges vexing the bilateral relationship.

“The China-US relationship is now at a critical crossroads,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told POLITICO in a statement. “We hope the US side will work with China to earnestly implement the common understanding reached by [Xi and Biden] to enhance communication, manage differences and focus on cooperation, so as to bring the bilateral relations back to the track of sound and steady development at an early date.”

Blinken highlighted the potential security risks to the U.S. and its allies posed by China’s alliance with Russia. “While Russia was clearly mobilizing to invade Ukraine, President Xi and President [Vladimir] Putin declared that the friendship between their countries was, and I quote, ‘without limits’ and this week as President Biden was in Japan, China and Russia conducted strategic bomber patrols together in the region,” Blinken said.

That mixture of rhetorical carrots and sticks confused some observers.

“I found the speech to contain many contradictions — on the one hand [Blinken] says there is no adversarial relationship or Cold War with China, but on the other hand he outlines steps for the U.S. to shape the environment around Beijing with an eye to advance U.S. strategic interests,” said Lina Benabdallah, assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University.

Blinken’s speech sets the table for a call between Biden and Xi that national security adviser Jake Sullivan said may occur within weeks. The White House hasn’t issued an agenda for that call, but a senior administration official said Wednesday that they had been working to “push Beijing to work with us on crisis communications, on risk reduction and on strategic stability.” That echoes a list of bilateral cooperation priorities Sullivan outlined after Biden’s virtual meeting with Xi in November. Bilateral rancor since has stymied any measurable progress.

“[The administration] has got to signify some goodwill — right now the Chinese side believes that it doesn’t matter what they do, that if they moderate their policies … we won’t adjust our own stance from a more hostile competition to a more friendly competition,” said Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy.

The speech by Blinken on Thursday came days after Biden concluded his first trip to Asia as president, during which he reached an agreement with a dozen Indo-Pacific nations to participate in negotiations on his signature economic initiative in the region, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

Blinken spent more than two minutes of his speech reiterating U.S. support for Taiwan and decrying what he called China’s “provocative” military intimidation of the self-governing island.

“While our [Taiwan] policy has not changed, what has changed is Beijing’s growing coercion, like trying to cut off Taiwan’s relations with countries around the world and blocking it from participating in international organizations,” said Blinken. “These words and actions are deeply destabilizing; they risk miscalculation and threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.”

Beijing saw Blinken’s expression of support for Taiwan coming and fired a pre-speech rhetorical shot across the bow. A saber-rattling op-ed by Chinese ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang, appeared in the South China Morning Post just hours prior to Blinken’s speech, warning of the perils of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.

“U.S. actions will embolden [Taiwanese] separatists and turn the Taiwan Strait into a dangerous powder key … we will never compromise or back down,” he wrote.

“It’s important to lower the temperature if we can in our dealings with China relative to Taiwan,” said Ret. Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, professor of practice at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. “I think Secretary Blinken’s speech struck the right tone for that in terms of firmness at the same time trying to engage in a constructive relationship with China.”

Biden also welcomed the leaders of the Association of Southeast Nations to the White House earlier this month for a special summit, the first such meeting held in Washington, D.C.

The intense bout of Asia diplomacy, capped by Blinken’s speech on Thursday, underscored the administration’s ongoing efforts to refocus its foreign policy on the Indo-Pacific. Biden sought to prioritize the region upon taking office, but U.S. officials have been largely consumed since February by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Blinken referenced that conflict in his remarks, pledging that “even as President Putin’s war continues, we will remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order — and that’s posed by the People’s Republic of China.”

Blinken made clear that a key foundation of the administration’s China strategy is to create and reinforce allies and partnerships in Asia and beyond to offset China’s growing influence. But observers question whether China’s international partnership development is outgunning that of the U.S. They point to the fact that the Quad is an informal geostrategic grouping and that the IPEF lacks trade access incentives.

“Look at [Chinese Foreign Minister] Wang Yi’s travels throughout the Pacific to create a regional security pact — there’s a big difference in the partnerships that Beijing is developing which are formal, strategic signed agreements that endure,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the nonprofit Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Summitry that doesn’t lead to a signed deal is not a strategy and this administration seems to not really understand that.”

Biden also generated significant media attention when he declared in Tokyo that the United States would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan if the island was invaded by China. Those comments by Biden marked the third such assertion since he assumed office, remarks that seemingly undermined the long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/26/blinken-biden-china-policy-speech-00035385

Tuesday, 18 January 2022

Malaysian FM sees shift in China’s justification of sweeping South China Sea claims

Saifuddin Abdullah says Beijing now “speaks less of the ‘nine-dash line’ and more often of the ‘Four Sha’.”

2022.01.18

Malaysian FM sees shift in China’s justification of sweeping South China Sea claims

A file photo showing Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah speaking during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, China, Sept. 12, 2019.

Reuters

China appears to be shifting from the so-called “nine-dash line” toward a new legal theory to support its expansive claims in the South China Sea, although analysts say its alternative is also problematic under international law.

In comments to reporters last week, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said Beijing now “speaks less of the ‘nine-dash line’ and more often of the ‘Four Sha’.” He said the shift toward has been witnessed by member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and “is even more serious” than the old claim.

“Four Sha,” or Four Sands Archipelagos, are the four island groups in the South China Sea that Beijing claims to hold “historical rights” to. China calls them “Dongsha Qundao,” “Xisha Qundao,” “Zhongsha Qundao,” and “Nansha Qundao.” Internationally, they are known as Pratas Islands, Paracel Islands, the Macclesfield Bank area and Spratly Islands.

The concept they may be eclipsing, the nine-dash line, is a U-shaped line encircling most of the South China Sea that China has been using to demarcate its sovereignty over the sea.

An international tribunal in 2016 invalidated the line saying China has no legal basis for it. Although Beijing rejected the ruling, other nations have endorsed it.

“The nine-dash line has proven to be a really easy target for critics of China’s South China Sea claims,” Julian Ku, a professor at the Hofstra University School of Law in Long Island, New York State, said.

“It was also directly considered and rejected by the South China Sea Arbitral Tribunal in 2016.”

“China’s Four Sha theory was not directly considered by the tribunal ruling, although it would also be difficult to support,” Ku said, adding: “Still, it is a less dramatic claim and it is also not based solely on historical claims.”

Illustrative map of the apparent geographic extents of Dongsha Qundao, Xisha Qundao, Zhongsha Qundao, and Nansha Qundao, from which the PRC claims its maritime zones. Credit: U.S. State Department's report 'Limits in the Seas'

‘Slowly emerging’

Bill Hayton, a journalist-turned-scholar who wrote an acclaimed book on the South China Sea, said the Four Sha theory has been “emerging slowly, with a boost after the arbitration tribunal ruling.”

“The Four-Sha is an attempt to develop an UNCLOS-like justification for control over the South China Sea with some sort of legal basis,” he said. UNCLOS is the acronym for the UN Convention of the Law on the Sea.

“But everyone else is still rejecting it,” Hayton added.

Each of the archipelagos in the Four Sha consists of a large number of scattered outlying features, most of which are submerged under water. Beijing insists that they are to be treated as whole units for purposes of sovereignty and maritime entitlements.

The Zhongsha Qundao, or Macclesfield Bank area, is actually entirely underwater, and not an archipelago, experts say.

Ku from the Hofstra University said although the first-known attempt by Chinese officials to advance Four Sha as a new legal theory was recorded at a closed-door meeting with U.S. State Department officials in 2017, “the Four Sha are not new to China’s claims in the South China Sea.”

The Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone of the People's Republic of China, adopted by China in 1992, declared the four island groups. They were also mentioned in a 2016 white paper issued by China disputing the Philippines’ claims in the South China Sea arbitral process.

“These new Chinese legal justifications are no more lawful than China’s nine-dash line claim but it is more confusing and less simple to criticize,” Ku said.

A U.S. State Department report on China’s South China Sea claims that was published this month, ‘Limits in the Seas’, does not mention Four Sha concept. But it does analyze the People’s Republic of China (PRC) sovereignty claim over Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha. It concludes that China’s assertions of sovereignty are “unlawful.”

Change of approach?

The apparent shift from nine-dash line to Four Sha has caused concern among South China Sea claimants.

Malaysia is among the ASEAN nations’ whose territorial claims overlap with China’s in the South China Sea. The others are Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam. While Indonesia does not regard itself as party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing does claim historic rights to areas overlapping Indonesia's exclusive economic zone.

In a response to a question posed by a reporter from BenarNews, a sister agency of RFA, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin told reporters last Thursday that “they (China) have changed from using mostly the nine-dash line narrative to the Four Sha. I can see some policy change in the way they approach the South China Sea.”

“It is yet to be seen whether the Four Sha (approach) is more aggressive or the nine-dash line (is) more aggressive,” Saifuddin said.

Ku said he did not think the Four Sha claim would necessarily lead to more aggressive actions by China, but “it provides another justification for aggressive actions that it might want to take.”

Hayton, meanwhile, saw potential for escalation in the South China Sea as Four Sha concept “has given Chinese actors some new confidence that they can make a plausible case. We've seen a lot more assertive actions recently, like China’s harassing oil and gas off Malaysia and Indonesia,” he said.

In a related development, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has reiterated that his country will not use its strength to "bully” its smaller neighbors. He also highlighted the importance of settling disputes in the South China Sea peacefully.

"Stressing only one side's claims and imposing one's own will on the other is not a proper way for neighbours to treat each other and it goes against the oriental philosophy of how people should get along with each other," Wang told a virtual forum organized by the Chinese embassy in the Philippines on Monday.

Muzliza Mustafa of RFA-affiliated BenarNews in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.

Source

Tuesday, 23 November 2021

China will not bully smaller countries, Xi tells Asean leaders

Chinese President Xi Jinping has assured South-east Asian leaders that China does not seek hegemony and will not bully its smaller neighbours, even while tensions in the South China Sea have escalated.

Chinese President Xi Jinping handed out a range of goodies including vaccines and funds to help Asean's Covid-19 response.PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Tan Dawn Wei

China Bureau Chief

UPDATED
NOV 23, 2021, 5:43 AM

BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping has assured South-east Asian leaders that China does not seek hegemony and will not bully its smaller neighbours, even while tensions in the South China Sea have escalated.

At a special summit held virtually on Monday (Nov 22) between the top leaders of China and the Asean states to mark 30 years of dialogue relations, Mr Xi also pledged aid in terms of Covid-19 vaccines and funds to support the grouping’s pandemic response.

The meeting comes after a skirmish in the South China Sea last week (Nov 16) that involved the Chinese Coast Guard blocking boats carrying supplies to the Philippine military in the disputed Spratly Islands, and firing a water cannon on the vessels.

The incident, which China says was an act of defence of its sovereignty, drew strong protest from the Philippine government and a warning from the United States that it would come to its ally's aid if an armed attack is launched.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took the opportunity at the virtual summit to condemn the act. "We abhor the recent event in the Ayungin Shoal and view with grave concern other similar developments," he said, adding that the episode "does not speak well of the relations between our nations and our partnership".

It is not clear if Mr Xi responded to Mr Duterte's remarks, but he had cordial words for the Asean leaders and emphasised the bloc's high priority in China's regional relations.

"China was, is, and will always be Asean's good neighbour, good friend and good partner," he told the bloc's leaders through a video link, according to a readout released by state news agency Xinhua.

China will "unswervingly" support Asean unity and centrality, as well as the grouping playing a bigger role in regional and international affairs, said the Chinese leader.

To maintain peace in the region, countries need to pursue dialogue instead of confrontation, he added.

"China will never seek hegemony, much less bully smaller countries.”

The South-east Asian nations will receive 150 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, and also an injection of US$5 million (S$6.8 million) into their joint Asean Response Fund, Mr Xi said.

China is also ready to offer Asean US$1.5 billion in development assistance in the next three years to support its fight against Covid-19 and speed up economic recovery.

It, too, will work with the Asean states to step up vaccine joint production, collaborate on the research and development of medicine, and help the South-east Asian countries build better capacity to respond to major public health emergencies.

As the leaders marked the milestone in relations on Monday, they also gave it an upgrade to a "comprehensive strategic partnership" status, which allows for deeper collaboration between the parties.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Asean and China should look at how to progressively open up their borders to one another as vaccination rates improve across the region.

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