At the beginning of 2011, the second decade of the 21st century, the China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting has great significance, said Yang Jiechi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, on Tuesday.
Yang spoke highly of the significance of the meeting, which was held on Tuesday in Kunming, capital city of southwestern China's Yunnan Province, during an interview on the consensus reached by the meeting and its meaning.
Today's discussion focused on how to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the dialogue between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), how to strengthen interconnection through road and sea transportation routes and construction of better telecommunication and other infrastructure establishment, how to fully exploit the geographic and complementary advantages to promote mutually beneficial cooperation and how to further expand the cooperation on important regional and global issues.
Yang stressed that both sides pledged to further improve coordination and promote interconnection. China will not only strengthen interconnection with the ASEAN neighbors on its borders, but also with ASEAN countries across the sea, such as Brunei, the Philippines and Indonesia.
China and ASEAN also vowed to increase people-to-people exchanges, in particular, among young people, and will set to a goal of exchanging 100,000 students. In addition, both sides will make efforts to greatly increase the number of personnel exchanged and try to reach 1,500 person-trips in the near future.
Yang noted that the two sides will hold a series of important meetings this year and said that the friendly and mutually beneficial relations between China and ASEAN will surely achieve greater development in the new decade.
More such informal talks, which Yang said are very important, are likely in the future.
