Chinese Premier arrives in Bali

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived here Thursday to attend a series of meetings for East Asian leaders, scheduled to open here today and runs for five days. Wen will attend the 14th summit between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), commemorating the 20th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue, as well as the 14th summit between ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea and the sixth East Asia Summit. During his stay in Bali, the Chinese leader is expected to reiterate China''s policies on deepening cooperation with ASEAN in political, economic and cultural fields. ASEAN and China leaders will also review the development of bilateral ties and map out strategic planning for the future. For his part, Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told reporters at a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday the ASEAN-China summit was also expected to issue a joint declaration, a show of China''s political will to deepen its strategic partnership with ASEAN countries. Liu said that, at the East Asia Summit, Wen would like to exchange views with others on the future development of the summit, the regional and international situation and boosting cooperation in such key sectors as education, finance, energy, public health and disaster management. After attending these meetings, Wen will pay an official visit to Brunei. The Chinese premier was making the trips at the invitation of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Brunei''s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. As China and ASEAN are going to celebrate their 20th anniversary of dialogue at a commemorative summit in the Indonesian resort island of Bali this week, China-ASEAN relations have all evolved to a stage better than ever. ASEAN, the then 6-member bloc, is dubbed now as the growth engine for the world and China, who just began economic reforms toward a market economy in those days, ranks the 2nd largest economy. Their relations also prove to emerge stronger from all the changes they encountered over the period. The year of 1997 is the watershed in the history of China and ASEAN relations. Despite its own financial difficulties, China resisted pressures to depreciate its currency renminbi and offered more than 4-billion-U.S. dollar assistance and export credit to help Southeast Asian countries to recover,which later resulted in the establishment of good-neighborly and mutual-trust partnership. Both sides also signed an initial framework in 2002 to build a Free Trade Area (FTA).