Fu Ying elaborates on China-ASEAN progress in 20 years

Q5: It is often said in the United States that the country should strengthen its partnership with ASEAN and other countries to shape the strategic environment around China in order to keep China in check. In some Southeast Asian countries there is also a long-standing view that ASEAN countries should take the initiative to act as a balance between the major powers and to improve their security when major powers are seeking to maintain strategic balance. What do you think of this, and do you think China should do something to calm the security fears of small and medium-sized countries that consider themselves caught in a conflict between the big powers?

Fu Ying: I do not believe that manipulating small and medium-sized countries is the way a responsible power should behave. Southeast Asia has painful memories of being enslaved and exploited by foreign powers in modern history. During the Cold War the US and the Soviet Union used Southeast Asia as a key frontier for confrontation and competition, and fought proxy wars and formed military blocs that led to long-term turmoil and poverty for some small and medium-sized countries caught in conflict. After the Cold War ended, countries in this region focused on economic development and worked together, and as a result enjoyed better times. They supported economic globalization, improvement of relations between major powers and mutually beneficial integration between countries because they understood that this security policy best serves their interests.

I have interacted with diplomats from ASEAN countries in the past. They have often said that major powers are like elephants in the jungle, while other countries are like grass, and when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. This concern of ASEAN countries is understandable. While promoting their own reform and development, ASEAN countries are forming country groups, promoting regional collaboration and engaging in diversified and balanced diplomacy involving various actors, seeking to play a "central role" in promoting regional integration and to be a "coordinator" in promoting reconciliation among major powers. They value the recognition and support that China provides.

Now in the third decade of the 21st century, the US has made China a target of strategic competition and is pursuing its so-called Indo-Pacific strategy, the goal being to "contain" and encircle China. The US is pushing the region back into the abyss of Cold War confrontation, working out how to divide the regional security order into blocs, how to draw in and exploit small and medium-sized countries to restrain and suppress competitors, and how to put together a supply chain alliance "decoupling from China". This strategy reflects an outdated Cold War mentality that is dangerous and runs counter to the will of people.

China and ASEAN are close neighbors that are immovable. China upholds its policy of neighborhood diplomacy featuring amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness as well as building partnerships with its neighbors, and does not require ASEAN countries to choose between China and the US. At the same time, we believe ASEAN countries have their own views and are capable of adhering to their own diplomatic principles and their central role in building regional collaboration and regional security frameworks. We also believe ASEAN countries are unwilling to be manipulated by one major power to harm the other.