Library:The governance of China/Chapter 13: Neighborhood Diplomacy

Chapter 13: Neighborhood Diplomacy, Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, Volume I.

Work Together to Build the Silk Road Economic Belt

September 7, 2013
Part of the speech at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan.

More than 2,100 years ago during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), a Chinese envoy named Zhang Qian was twice sent to Central Asia on missions of peace and friendship. His journeys opened the door to friendly contacts between China and Central Asian countries, and started the Silk Road linking the East and West, Asia and Europe.

Shaanxi, my home province, is right at the starting point of the ancient Silk Road. Today, as I stand here and look back at history, I seem to hear the camel bells echoing in the mountains and see the wisps of smoke rising from the desert, and this gives me a specially good feeling.

Kazakhstan, located on the ancient Silk Road, has made an important contribution to the exchanges between the Eastern and Western civilizations and the interactions and cooperation between various nations and cultures. This land has borne witness to a steady stream of envoys, caravans, travelers, scholars and artisans traveling between the East and the West. The exchanges and mutual learning thus made possible the progress of human civilization.

The ancient city of Almaty is also on the ancient Silk Road. In Almaty, there is a Xian Xinghai Boulevard, which got its name from a true story. After the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in 1941, Xian, a renowned Chinese composer, found his way to Almaty. By then, he was worn down by poverty and illness and had no one to turn to. Fortunately, the Kazakh composer Bakhitzhan Baykadamov took care of Xian and provided him with the comfort of a home.

It was in Almaty that Xian composed his famous works: Liberation of the Nation, Sacred War and Red All over the River. He also wrote the symphony Amangeldy based on the exploits of the Kazakh national hero. These works served as a rallying call to fight Fascism and proved immensely popular with the local people.

Throughout the millennia, the peoples of various countries along the ancient Silk Road have written a chapter of friendship that has been passed on to this very day. More than 2,000 years of exchanges demonstrate that on the basis of unity, mutual trust, equality, inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutually beneficial cooperation, countries of different races, beliefs and cultural backgrounds are fully able to share peace and development. This is the valuable inspiration we have drawn from the ancient Silk Road.

Over the past 20 years, the relations between China and Eurasian countries have grown rapidly, and the ancient Silk Road has gained new vitality. In a new way, it is lifting the mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Eurasian countries to a fresh height.

A neighbor is better than a distant relative. China and Central Asian countries are close and friendly neighbors. China values its friendship and cooperation with these countries, and takes improving these relations as a foreign policy priority.

China's relations with the Central Asian countries now face a golden opportunity of growth. We hope to work with these countries to strengthen trust, friendship and cooperation, and promote common development and prosperity to the benefit of all our peoples.

– We should pass on our friendship from generation to generation and remain good neighbors living in harmony. China is committed to peaceful development and an independent foreign policy of peace. We respect the development paths and domestic and foreign policies pursued independently by the people of every country. We will never interfere in the internal affairs of Central Asian countries. We do not seek to dominate regional affairs or establish any sphere of influence. We stand ready to enhance consultation and coordination with Russia and all Central Asian countries to sustain harmony in our region.

– We should firmly support and trust each other and be sincere and good friends. Rendering each other firm support on major issues concerning core interests such as sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and stability underlies China's strategic partnership with the Central Asian countries. We will reinforce trust and cooperation with the Central Asian countries bilaterally and within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to combat the "three forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism as well as drug trafficking and organized transnational crimes, and this will create a favorable environment for promoting economic development and improving the well-being of the people in this region.

– We should vigorously enhance practical cooperation and be good partners of mutually beneficial cooperation. Both China and the Central Asian countries are at a crucial stage of development, and we face unprecedented opportunities and challenges. We have all set medium- to long-term development goals based on our national conditions. Our strategic goals are the same – to ensure sustainable and stable economic development, build a prosperous and strong nation and achieve national revitalization. Therefore, we need to enhance practical cooperation across the board, use our good political relations, geographical proximity and economic complementarities to boost sustainable growth, and build a community of shared interests and mutual benefit.

– We should expand regional cooperation with a more open mind and broader vision, and achieve joint progress. Global economic integration is accelerating, and regional cooperation is booming. The Eurasian region has a number of regional cooperation organizations. The members and observers of the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) and the SCO are from Eurasia, South Asia and West Asia. By intensifying cooperation between the SCO and the EAEC, we will create further space for development.

To forge closer economic ties, deepen cooperation and expand development space in the Eurasian region, we should take an innovative approach and jointly build an economic belt along the Silk Road. This will be a great undertaking benefitting the people of all countries along the routes. To turn this vision into reality, we may start in specific areas and connect them over time to cover the whole region.

First, we need to step up policy consultation. Countries should have full discussions on development strategies and policies, adopt plans and measures for advancing regional cooperation through consultation in the spirit of seeking common ground while setting aside differences, and give the policy and legal "green light" to regional economic integration.

Second, we need to improve road connections. The SCO is working on an agreement on transport facilitation. Its early signing and implementation will open up a major transport route connecting the Pacific and the Baltic. On this basis, we can actively discuss the best way to improve cross-border transport infrastructure and work towards a transport network connecting East Asia, West Asia and South Asia to facilitate economic development and travel in the region.

Third, we need to promote unimpeded trade. The envisaged economic belt along the Silk Road is inhabited by nearly three billion people and it represents the biggest market in the world, with enormous, unparalleled potential for trade and investment cooperation between the countries involved. We should discuss a proper arrangement for trade and investment facilitation, remove trade barriers, reduce trade and investment costs, increase the speed and raise the quality of regional economic flows and achieve mutually beneficial progress in the region.

Fourth, we need to enhance monetary circulation. China and Russia already have sound cooperation on settling trade in local currencies, and have made good progress and yielded rich experience in this respect. This good practice can be shared with others in the region. If our region can realize local currency convertibility and settlement under the current and capital accounts, it will significantly lower circulation cost, increase our ability to fend off financial risks, and make our region more competitive internationally.

Fifth, we need to increase understanding between our peoples. Friendship between peoples is the key to good relations between states. To pursue productive cooperation in the above-mentioned areas, we need the support of our peoples. We should encourage more friendly exchanges between our peoples to enhance mutual understanding and traditional friendship, and build strong public support and a solid social foundation for regional cooperation.

Work Together to Build a 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road

October 3, 2013
Part of the speech at the People's Representative Council of Indonesia.

China and the ASEAN countries are close neighbors sharing kinship. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the China-ASEAN strategic partnership, and our relationship is at a new historical starting point.

China places great importance on Indonesia's standing and influence in ASEAN. We wish to work with Indonesia and other ASEAN countries to ensure that China and ASEAN are good neighbors, good friends and good partners who share prosperity and security and stick together through thick and thin. Through our joint efforts, we can build a close China-ASEAN community of shared future so as to bring more benefits to both China and ASEAN and to the people in the region.

To achieve this goal, we should take the following steps:

First, build trust and good-neighborly ties. Trust is the very foundation of both interpersonal and state-to-state relations. China is committed to forging a relationship with the ASEAN countries featuring sincerity, friendship, and enhanced mutual political and strategic trust.

There is no one-size-fits-all development model in the world or an unchanging development path. Both the Chinese people and the people of the ASEAN countries have embraced change and innovation with an open mind, and searched and found, in a pioneering and enterprising spirit, development paths in keeping with their specific national conditions that conform to the trend of the times. These efforts have opened up a broad prospect for their economic and social development.

We should each respect the other's right to independently choose social system and development path as well as the right to explore and pursue new ways of economic and social development, and improve its people's lives. We should have full confidence in each other's strategic choice, support each other on issues of major concern, and never deviate from the general goal of China-ASEAN strategic cooperation.

China is ready to discuss with the ASEAN countries the conclusion of a treaty of good-neighborliness, friendship and cooperation in a joint effort to build good-neighborly relations. China will continue to support ASEAN in enhancing its strength, building the ASEAN community, and playing a central role in regional cooperation.

Second, work for mutually beneficial cooperation. As a Chinese saying goes, "The interests to be considered should be the interests of all." China is ready to open its door wider to the ASEAN countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit and enable the latter to gain more from China's development. China is prepared to upgrade the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and increase two-way trade to US$1 trillion-worth by 2020.

China is committed to enhancing its connections with the ASEAN countries. China proposes the establishment of an Asian infrastructure investment bank to support the ASEAN countries and other developing countries in our region to strengthen links in infrastructural development.

Southeast Asia has since ancient times been an important hub along the ancient Maritime Silk Road. China will strengthen maritime cooperation with the ASEAN countries, and the China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation Fund set up by the Chinese government should be used to develop maritime partnership in a joint effort to build the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century. China is ready to expand its practical cooperation with the ASEAN countries across the board to meet each other's needs and complement each other's strengths. This will enable us to jointly seize opportunities and meet challenges in the interest of common development and prosperity.

Third, stand together and assist each other. China and the ASEAN countries are intimate partners, and we share the responsibility for regional peace and stability. In the past, the people of China and the ASEAN countries stood together in the fight to take our destiny back into our own hands. In recent years, our peoples have stood side by side and forged strong synergy in responding to the Asian financial crisis and the international financial crisis, and in responding to the Indian Ocean tsunami and China's Wenchuan earthquake.

We should cast away the Cold War mentality, champion the new thinking of comprehensive security, common security and cooperative security, and jointly uphold peace and stability in our region. We should have deeper cooperation in disaster prevention and relief, cyber security, combating cross-border crimes and joint law enforcement to create a more peaceful, tranquil and amicable home for the people of the region.

China is ready to work with the ASEAN countries to improve the China-ASEAN defense ministers' meeting mechanism and hold regular dialogues on regional security issues.

With regard to differences and disputes between China and some Southeast Asian countries on territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, peaceful solutions should be sought, and differences and disputes should be properly handled through equality-based dialogue and friendly consultation in the overall interests of bilateral ties and regional stability.

Fourth, enhance mutual understanding and friendship. As a Chinese saying goes, "A tall tree grows from a small seedling; and the building of a nine-story tower starts with the first shovel of earth." To ensure that the tree of China-ASEAN friendship remains evergreen, the soil of social support for our relations should be fertile. Last year saw 15 million people traveling between China and the ASEAN countries, and there are over 1,000 flights between the two sides each week now. Increased interactions have nurtured a deeper bond between us and made our people feel ever-closer to each other.

We should encourage more friendly exchanges between the young people, think tanks, parliaments, NGOs and civil organizations of the two sides, which will generate further intellectual support for the growth of China-ASEAN relations and help increase the mutual understanding and friendship between our peoples. China is ready to send more volunteers to the ASEAN countries to support their development in the cultural, educational, health and medical fields. China proposes to designate 2014 as the year of China-ASEAN cultural exchanges. China will provide the ASEAN countries with 15,000 government scholarships in the coming three to five years.

Fifth, be open and inclusive. The sea is vast because it is fed by all rivers. In the long course of human history, the people of China and the ASEAN countries have created splendid and great civilizations renowned throughout the world. Ours is a diversified region where various civilizations have assimilated and interacted with one another, and this has provided an important cultural foundation for the people of China and the ASEAN countries to gain from each other's experience.

We should draw on the experience gained by other regions in development, and welcome countries outside the region to play a constructive role in promoting development and stability in the region. The outside countries, on their part, should respect the diversity of our region and do their part to facilitate its development and stability. The China-ASEAN community of shared future is closely linked with the ASEAN community and the East Asian community. The two sides need to give full rein to our respective strength to enhance diversity, harmony, inclusiveness and common progress in our region for the benefit of both our people and the people outside the region.

An increasingly cohesive China-ASEAN community of shared future conforms to the trend of the times of seeking peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit and meets the common interests of the people of Asia and the rest of the world. This gives it a broad space and huge potential for growth.

Diplomacy with Neighboring Countries Characterized by Friendship, Sincerity, Reciprocity and Inclusiveness

October 24, 2013
Main points of the speech at a seminar on the work of neighborhood diplomacy.

Good diplomacy with neighboring countries is a requirement for realizing the Two Centenary Goals, and the Chinese Dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. We need to work harder to promote our diplomacy with neighboring countries, strive for a sound regional environment for our development, apply our own development for the benefit of neighboring countries, and achieve common development with them.

Following the founding of the PRC in 1949, the Party's first generation of collective central leadership under Comrade Mao Zedong, the second generation under Comrade Deng Xiaoping, the third generation under Comrade Jiang Zemin, and the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as general secretary, all attached high importance to diplomacy with neighboring countries. They developed important strategic ideas and guiding policies, created a sound environment, and laid a solid foundation for future diplomatic work. After the 18th National Congress, committed to ensuring continuity and stability in China's foreign policy, the CPC Central Committee defined, planned, and carried out a series of major diplomatic initiatives, paying particular attention to neighboring countries which are important to our development and diplomatic strategy.

Regions around our borders are strategically significant to our country in terms of geography, the environment, and relationships. When dealing with neighboring countries and related issues, we need a multi-dimensional perspective that extends beyond the immediate confines of time and space. Reviewing the situation, we can see that great changes have taken place in the general environment and in relationships with our neighbors. Our economic and trade ties with neighboring countries are closer, with unprecedented levels of exchange between them and us. Current circumstances demand that we keep pace with the times and be ever more active in blueprinting diplomatic strategies and undertaking diplomatic work with our neighbors.

China and its neighbors are full of vigor and vitality, and show obvious strengths in development and high potential. The region is stable on the whole, and most of our neighbors maintain an amicable relationship geared towards mutual benefit and cooperation with China. We must appreciate the situation to the full, devise appropriate strategies, and plan carefully, to perform better in our diplomatic exchanges with our neighbors.

China's diplomacy in this area is driven by and must serve the Two Centenary Goals and our national rejuvenation. To achieve these strategic aims, we must create and cement friendly relations and further mutually beneficial cooperation with neighboring countries, maintain and make the best use of the strategic opportunities we now enjoy, and safeguard China's state sovereignty, national security, and development interests. Together we must strive to build more amicable political relationships and closer economic ties, to further security cooperation and to encourage more cultural and people-to-people exchanges with neighboring countries.

China's basic policy of diplomacy with neighboring countries is to treat them as friends and partners, to make them feel secure and to support their development. This policy is characterized by friendship, sincerity, reciprocity and inclusiveness. Friendship is a consistent principle of China's diplomacy with its neighbors. In adherence to this principle, we need to help neighbors in times of crisis, treat them as equals, visit them frequently, and take actions that will win us support and friendship.

In response, we hope that neighboring countries will be well inclined towards us, and we hope that China will have a stronger affinity with them, and that our appeal and our influence will grow. We must treat neighbors with sincerity and cultivate them as friends and partners. We should cooperate with our neighbors on the basis of reciprocity, create a closer network of common interests, and better integrate China's interests with theirs, so that they can benefit from China's development and China can benefit and gain support from theirs. We should advocate inclusiveness, stressing that there is enough room in the Asia Pacific region for all countries to develop, and promoting regional cooperation with an open mind and enthusiasm. We must embrace and practice these ideas, so that they will become the shared beliefs and norms of conduct for the whole region.

As circumstances evolve, diplomacy with neighboring countries requires us to analyze and deal with issues strategically, improve our capabilities in planning and implementation, and promote every aspect of this diplomacy. We must also do everything possible to safeguard peace and stability in the region. The path of peaceful development is the Party's strategic choice, in line with the times and aligned with the fundamental interests of the country. A major aim of this diplomacy is peace and stability in the region.

We must make every effort to achieve mutually beneficial reciprocity. We have to make overall plans for the use of our resources in the areas of economy, trade, science and technology, and finance. We must take advantage of our comparative strengths, accurately identify strategic points of convergence for mutually beneficial cooperation with neighbors, and take an active part in regional economic cooperation. We should work with our neighbors to speed up connection of infrastructure between China and our neighboring countries, and establish a Silk Road Economic Belt and a Maritime Silk Road geared towards the demands of the 21st century. We should accelerate the pace of implementation of the strategy of free trade zones with our neighboring countries as the base, expand cooperation in trade and investment, and create a new pattern of regional economic integration. We need to further advance regional financial cooperation, prepare for and establish an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and improve the regional financial security network. We should open the border areas more quickly and reinforce reciprocal cooperation between the border areas of China and neighboring countries.

We must make efforts to promote regional security cooperation, which is needed by both China and our neighboring countries. A new outlook on security is required that features mutual trust and reciprocity, based on equality and cooperation. We must develop a comprehensive security strategy with neighboring countries, actively participate in regional and sub-regional security initiatives, push forward cooperation and enhance mutual trust.

We must strengthen publicity work, public diplomacy, people-to-people and cultural exchanges with neighboring countries, and consolidate and expand the social and public basis for the long-term development of our relationships with them. Diplomatic relations rely on the bonds between peoples. We should promote exchanges in all respects, including tourism, science, education and regional cooperation, to make friends in a broad range of sectors. We should clearly present our domestic and foreign policies to the outside world, explain China in an acceptable way, speak out and make ourselves heard, interpret the Chinese Dream from the perspective of our neighbors and their aspirations for a better life and regional prosperity, and let a sense of common future take root.

Policies and strategies are the lifelines of the Party, and of our diplomatic work as well. To do good diplomatic work, we must keep our eye on the situation both at home and abroad. Our domestic focus is to realize the Two Centenary Goals and the Chinese Dream; our international objectives are to strive for favorable external conditions for China's reform, development and stability, to safeguard state sovereignty, security and development interests, and to maintain world peace and stability, and promote common development. We should seek common ground and find converging interests, stick to the sound values of justice and benefit, hold to principles that we can act upon, cherish friendship and righteousness, and offer any assistance to developing countries that is within our means. For best results we need to promote reform and innovation in diplomatic work and strengthen the planning of our diplomatic activities. To achieve greater progress we should build a general framework to coordinate diplomatic work, weigh every relevant factor, and give full play to every department involved.

Diplomatic work with neighboring countries is arduous and demanding. Those charged with this responsibility must have a sense of mission and urgency. They must bear in mind the purpose of this work, improve their competence and working practices, devote themselves to the task, be bold in assuming responsibilities and making innovations, and engage in this work with drive and enthusiasm.