28 June 2016

Dear Colleagues,Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Morning!

It’s my great pleasure to attend today’s workshop. Let me first express, on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, our warm welcome to all of you for your presence, and sincere appreciation for your strong support to China in hosting this event. I also want to express my thanks to Lao PRD, the ASEAN chair, for co-chairing the workshop, and to Indonesia for moderating Session 2.

The East Asia Summit (EAS), a leaders-led strategic forum, has now entered its second decade. Over the years, members have used the EAS platform to carry out communication on major international and regional strategic issues, and to conduct exchange and cooperation in priority areas. This has helped enhance mutual understanding and trust, and played an important role in promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the region.

In recent years, regional security architecture has drawn increasing attention as a key strategic issue in the region. Some countries have put forward a number of important initiatives on the concept and architecture of regional security. Within the EAS framework, members have held active discussions on this issue. Brunei, Russia, Indonesia, Cambodia and India have successfully held four EAS workshops, which facilitated exchanges and mutual understanding among regional countries on security concept and security architecture. We appreciate their efforts, and we are glad to co-host the 5th workshop with Lao PDR to provide a useful platform for further exchange of views. I wish to take this opportunity to share with you a few preliminary thoughts.

At present, situation in East Asia is on the whole stable, and the momentum of peace and development remains strong. In East Asia, a stable region in the global landscape, peace, stability and development is the basic strategic and common pursuit of most countries. With a stable and rapidly-growing economy, this region is a “highland” in world economic growth. On the other hand, this region still faces many destabilizing factors and uncertainties in security. The Korean Peninsular nuclear issue, Afghanistan and other traditional hotspot issues are heating up from time to time. The intervention of external powers has aggravated the disputes on territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests between regional countries. Non-traditional security challenges such as terrorism, natural disasters and transnational crimes have become more acute, and have intertwined with traditional security issues, posing a realistic threat to regional security.

As multi-polarization and globalization gains momentum, East Asian countries have become more interdependent than ever before, and have become a community of shared interests, shared future and shared responsibilities. In the new century, regional security issues have become more emergent, diversified, transnational and fluid in nature. Facing such complex and diverse security challenges, no regional country can stay immune or address them in isolation. Peace and stability in East Asia must be upheld by all parities. This is a call of the era, and the common responsibility and obligation of all regional countries.

As the two wheels for regional cooperation, economic cooperation and security cooperation must be advanced in parallel. Through years of development, a relatively mature and stable framework for regional economic cooperation has taken shape, which has effectively promoted regional economic integration. In contrast, despite a number of security dialogue and cooperation mechanisms in this region, the development of regional security architecture is lagging behind. The efforts have not yet been systematic or adapted to the changing environment. To build a security architecture that works well for the region and meets the need of all parties has become a major strategic task for us.

To achieve long-term security in East Asia, we believe that the following five Cs are essential in building the regional security architecture in the future:

China has initiated the Asian security concept featuring common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. We advocate consultation and dialogue rather than the threat of force; openness and inclusiveness rather than mutual-exclusion; and win-win cooperation rather than a zero-sum game. This security concept is in line with the trend of our times. It is built on existing concept of regional security cooperation, and has injected new vitality to the development of security architecture in East Asia. Guided by the new security concept, China is ready to follow a new path of security, together with other countries in the region that is based on wide consultation, joint contribution, shared benefits, and win-win outcome.

The second C is Comprehensive. The future regional security architecture will be comprehensive and multi-layered. Countries in East Asia differ in historical traditions, politic systems, levels of development, and security concerns. In this region, there are a number of ASEAN-led security cooperation mechanisms, platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), as well as military alliances formed in history. Given such diversity, a consistent security framework in this region is not yet foreseeable in the near future, and it will be the new normal to see diverse mechanisms advancing together in the evolution of regional security architecture. These efforts will jointly contribute to regional peace and stability.

China has supported and worked for the development of multilateral security dialogue and cooperation mechanisms in the region. China worked with relevant countries to initiate the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Six-Party Talks, built the platform of Xiangshan Forum, and took an active part in ASEAN-led multilateral security dialogue and cooperation. China will continue to support the development of relevant mechanisms, actively participate in the dialogue and cooperation, and provide more public security goods, so as to improve regional security architecture.

The third C is Common. Developing the future security architecture is the common cause of regional countries. As multi-polarization becomes a global trend, regional security affairs should be decided by all regional countries through equal-footed participation. The development of regional security architecture concerns the common interests of regional countries, and requires active participation and contribution of all parties. East Asia is a region with most concentrated interests and frequent interaction of big countries, and these big countries should view each other’s strategic intention objectively and rationally, respect each other’s legitimate and reasonable interests and concerns, and work together to address global challenges. Relevant bilateral military alliances should be more transparent, avoid confrontation and strengthen integration with regional multilateral security mechanisms, so as to play a constructive role for regional peace and stability as they should.

The fourth C is Consensus. The future regional security architecture should be based on consensus and be advanced in a gradual manner. The development of regional security architecture is a long and gradual process, not something achievable overnight. All parties should continue to follow the “ASEAN way” of consensus, non-interference in the internal affairs of others, and accommodating the comfort level of all parties, strengthen dialogue and cooperation, and steadily promote the development of the regional security architecture on the basis of building consensus. The thorny traditional security issues are unavoidable as we develop the future security architecture. At the current stage however, the parties should continue to focus on less sensitive and non-traditional security areas as priority for cooperation, start from the easier tasks before moving on to more difficult ones, and build trust, so as to lay down a solid foundation for regional security architecture.

China is a firmly committed to participating in and contributing to regional security and economic cooperation. China will work with other regional countries to positively promote coordinated development of various cooperation mechanisms including the 10+1, 10+3, China-Japan-ROK cooperation, EAS, APEC, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and build a more open, inclusive, and mutually-complementary regional cooperation network. China’s Belt and Road initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Silk Road Fund and other major initiatives will advance together with existing multilateral mechanisms and initiatives, in order to contribute to lasting peace and security of the region.

Ladies and Gentlemen,Dear Colleagues,

All of you present today are both direct participants in regional security cooperation and experts on regional security issues that have unique insights in regional security architecture. I hope that you will take this opportunity to have in-depth exchange of views, enhance understanding and build consensus. Working together, we can explore the future paths of regional security architecture with an open and innovative mind, and plan for a better future of security cooperation in East Asia.

In conclusion, I wish this workshop a complete success.

Thank you!