On October 30, 2006, some leaders from China and ASEAN will gather together in Nanning city, as now the relationship between them has reached its peak. ASEAN members have discovered that it is an opportunity to cooperate with China rather then a threat.
There has been a kind of voice in the world that China's rising constitutes a threat to ASEAN nations. Such saying is derived from the historical event that China was once an overlord in East Asia.
However, the reality has denied 'China's threat theory'. Since the launch of the dialogue between ASEAN and China in 1991, Chinese statistics show that till 2005, China-ASEAN trade volume surged at an average of 22 percent on year-on-year basis, four percentage points higher than the growth rate of China's overall foreign trade volume in the corresponding period.
China-ASEAN trade volume in last year hit US $130.3 billion, up 23 percent from 2004 and roughly 16 times of the figure in 1991.
In the first three quarters this year, two-way trade between China and ASEAN countries topped $116.3 billion. Currently, China and ASEAN are each other's fourth largest trading partner.
ASEAN' trade surplus with China reached up to $9.6 billion, becoming one of the main regions with whom China suffers trade deficit.
Trade experts estimate that China-ASEAN trade may well reach $200 billion target by 2008, two years ahead of the scheduled time.
China's development has provided ASEAN with an increasingly huge trade market. In earlier 1990s, ASEAN' trade with China only accounted for 2 percent of ASEAN' total trade value. In 2005, the share rose to 11 percent.
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