President Xi urges Asia-Pacific integration
Greater economic cooperation will benefit region, he tells APEC event
President Xi Jinping said on Thursday that the Asia-Pacific region is no one's backyard and should not become an arena for big power contests, and he called for advancing regional economic integration and building an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future.
Xi made the remarks in a written speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in Bangkok, Thailand. He arrived in the Thai capital on Thursday to attend the 29th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, which will be held on Friday and Saturday, and to visit Thailand.
In the speech, Xi analyzed the regional situation amid changes in the international environment, saying that the overlapping effects of intensifying geopolitical tensions and the evolution of the economic landscape have had an impact on the development environment and cooperation architecture of the Asia-Pacific region.
The Cold-War mindset, hegemonism, unilateralism and protectionism are rising, and moves to distort international norms, disconnect economic exchanges, instigate regional conflict and thwart development cooperation are often seen, Xi said. All of these have posed a grave threat to Asia-Pacific peace and development, he added.
Xi underlined the need to follow a path of peaceful development, saying that bloc confrontation solves no problems, and prejudice brings disasters.
It is because the Asia-Pacific region was freed from the shadow of the Cold War that the regional economies, particularly small and medium-sized ones, can enter the expressway toward modernization, Xi said. "No attempt to wage a new Cold War will ever be allowed by the people or by our times," he added.
Xi called for upholding openness and inclusiveness and said that openness leads to progress, while exclusiveness surely results in backwardness. Undermining the long-lasting industrial and supply chains in the Asia-Pacific region will lead regional economic cooperation to a dead end, he said.
