Advertisement
China’s Communist Party
ChinaPolitics

China urges Asian neighbours to take peace and security ‘into their own hands’

  • Country’s legislative chief says region should resist ‘bloc confrontation’, calls for unity and independence amid ‘serious challenges’
  • Zhao Leji also promises more economic cooperation and openness as Beijing seeks to steady ties in the region

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
48
Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, promised more economic cooperation from Beijing and pledged equal treatment for foreign businesses in the country. Photo: Reuters
Hayley Wongin Boao, Hainan

The head of China’s top legislative body has urged Asian governments and business leaders to take the fate of the region’s peace and security “into their own hands”.

Advertisement
In a keynote address at the opening ceremony of the annual Boao Forum for Asia on Thursday, Zhao Leji, the chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said international peace and development are facing “serious challenges”.

Zhao urged the country’s neighbours to “insist on independence and autonomy, unity and self-reliance … oppose taking sides in bloc confrontation to prevent the region and the world from degenerating into a geopolitical arena of contention”.

While the world faces complex security threats, “we will … take the future destiny of Asia’s long-lasting peace and security into our own hands, so that the flame of peace can be passed on from one generation to the next,” Zhao said, without specifically mentioning the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and the Red Sea.

Zhao delivered the speech on the third day of the conference, where former and current officials, business executives and academics discussed Asian financial cooperation, trade, investment, and geopolitics.

Advertisement

Zhao, China’s No 3 leader, also promised more economic cooperation, adding that that door to the country’s markets will “only open wider and never be closed”.

Advertisement