The summit commemorating the 15th anniversary of the establishment of dialogue between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be held on October 30 in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The third China-ASEAN expo and a business and investment summit will also be held at the same time.
This indicates that China and ASEAN are moving closer to each other. The economic integration of the two sides will not only greatly promote the economic development of China and ASEAN, but also have an impact on the Asian and world economies.
In the past, some Asian nations felt that the economic development of China posed a threat to them because large quantities of low-priced Chinese-made commodities would compete with theirs in a cut-throat way and, in turn, do harm to their economies.
Indeed, the strongly competitive Chinese products do replace some of those produced by East Asian countries in, for instance, European and US markets.
But it also should be seen that, thanks to China's huge population, a vast market is emerging in the country and absorbing large amounts of Asian products. The market shares the East Asian countries gain in China are bound to outstrip those they lose in Europe and North America.
As a matter of fact, exports by East Asian countries have recently shown signs of rebounding. This is not so much a result of the revival of the US economy as growing Chinese demand.
Benefits brought to Asian countries by China's fast economic growth are not merely limited to trade and business areas. They also find expression in tourism.
In recent years, for example, the number of Chinese tourists who travel abroad, particularly to Asian destinations, has been mounting significantly. This has helped create tourist booms in the destination countries; Malaysia, for example, has seen some 500,000 more tourist arrivals from China annually in recent years.
All this shows that China's economic growth helps facilitate Asian countries' development instead of doing them harm.
Furthermore, China's rising economy will facilitate the shift of the Asian countries' economic structures toward higher levels and help make the economic activities of China and East Asian countries more and more complementary to each other.
