Guangxi, located on the coast of the South China Sea, is the frontier linking ASEAN. By holding CAEXPO annually, Guangxi has enriched the "Nanning Channel", promoted the total trade volume between China and ASEAN to exceed 680 billion US dollars, and enhanced the deepening of China-ASEAN economic integration and acceleration of economic and trade cooperation, making China-ASEAN the most successful and most dynamic model in Asia-Pacific regional cooperation.
During his inspection tour in Guangxi in April 2021, China's President Xi Jinping called for more efforts to break new grounds in promoting high-quality development in border ethnic regions, and to serve and integrate into the new development paradigm.
Pace of opening up is vigorous to achieve continuous development. Guangxi is thoroughly implementing the important instructions of President Xi Jinping, and accelerating the establishment of a new pattern of all-round opening up and development of "southward development, northward connection, eastward integration and westward combination". Lan Tianli, Governor of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, pointed out at the Guangxi Leading Group Meeting of the 18th CAEXPO that the success of convening the CAEXPO this year is an important task to implement President Xi Jinping's instructions, and serve the diplomacy with neighboring countries. It is also the concrete actions to seize new opportunities, and to serve and integrate into the new development paradigm, as well as the important means to transform Guangxi's advantages in opening up to advantages of development.
Grasping "Breaking" and "Making" and Focusing on "Four Proposals"
The 18th China-ASEAN Expo is full of keywords like "more", "higher" and "better". More countries such as Japan, South Korea and New Zealand have become RCEP member states and joined CAEXP's "Circle of Friends"; higher-level economic and trade cooperation in manufacturing, high-tech, and digital economy is nurtured here; as the scale of China-ASEAN bilateral trade has expanded 85 times in the past 30 years, with mutual investment totaled more than 310 billion US dollars, better development momentum injects impetus to building a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future.
From a great many good friends to customers flooding in, from cutting-edge technology to heavy machines, the arrow of openness accurately hit the bullseye of the high-quality China-ASEAN regional economic development, and at the same time making CAEXPO an annual focus. Lu Xinshe, Secretary of the CPC Guangxi Committee, recently published an article in Contemporary World, saying that since 2004, Guangxi has successfully hosted the China-ASEAN Expo and a series of conferences and forums for 17 consecutive years. A total of 97 Chinese and foreign leaders and more than 3,400 minister-level VIPs attended the previous 17 CAEXPOs. In 2020, in particular, China's President Xi Jinping gave a keynote speech at the Opening Ceremony of the 17th China-ASEAN Expo, which further highlighted the important role of China-ASEAN Expo in serving China's diplomacy with neighboring countries.
However, the key words of the China-ASEAN Expo are not only limited to "more", "higher"and "better", but also include "breaking" and "making".
In the face of recurrent epidemic outbreaks and the rise of trade protectionism, how can we "break" the situation? There is no making without breaking. Today, Guangxi has thoroughly implemented the spirit of the "Four Proposals" initiated in the keynote speech by China's President Xi Jinping at the Opening Ceremony of the 17th CAEXPO. Marvelous activities will be staged in turn at the 18th China-ASEAN Expo.
—— Centering on "enhancing strategic mutual trust", a series of activities are planned, including Achievements Exhibition on Economic and Trade Cooperation in Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations; the establishment of the China-ASEAN Multimodal Transport Alliance will also be advanced to build the Guangxi China-ASEAN Multimodal Transport Alliance Base.
—— Focusing on "elevating economic and trade cooperation", a number of economic and trade activities will be held, such as the China-ASEAN Production Capacity and Investment Cooperation Forum, and Guangxi will host the Promotion Conference for China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone.
—— Centering on "enhancing innovation in science and technology", China-ASEAN Technology Transfer and Innovation Cooperation Conference, Advanced Technology Exhibition, China-ASEAN Digital Silk Road Summit and China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Summit, etc. will be held.
—— Focusing on "strengthening cooperation against COVID-19", the public epidemic prevention and health section will be set up again. Guangxi Sino-Vietnamese Border Area AIDS Program and Training Course of the Lancang-Mekong Cross Border Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Project, International Medical Innovation and Cooperation Forum and special promotion conference will also be held.
"Although the epidemic has widened the distance between people, the ties between China and ASEAN countries have never been so close as they are today." said Wang Lei, Secretary-General of the CAEXPO Secretariat. Efforts are made to host the 18th CAEXPO successfully, which will make due contributions to serving the national strategy, building an open and cooperative highland for ASEAN to better serve the "Belt and Road" and an important node in the domestic and international double circulation, and serving and integrating into the new development paradigm.
Deciding Whether to "Advance" or to "Defend", Changing the Thinking Mode in Convening CAEXPO
How can the 18th China-ASEAN Expo ensure safety in the face of recurrent epidemic outbreaks? Based on the experience of epidemic prevention and control in the 17th CAEXPO, the 18th CAEXPO will strengthened border control, further develop and improve the epidemic prevention and control plans centering on "people, exhibits, and exhibition halls", and make sure "one activity with one detailed plan."These measures reflect Guangxi's circumspection and perseverance in carrying out normalized epidemic prevention and control, and they are also the key variables for CAEXPO to accurately determine whether to "advance" or "defend", and to arrive at the optimal solution for high-quality exhibitions.
By "defending", the increment will be clarified, turning crises into opportunities and seeking opportunities in the face of crises. "External input" of the pandemic is strictly controlled, and foreign exhibitors will be represented by their Chinese agents. The thinking mode in convening CAEXPO is changed with more opportunities. The 18th China-ASEAN Expo will increase its effort in attracting domestic exhibitors. The scale of participation in provinces, regions and cities including Guizhou, Fujian, Ningxia, Xiamen, and Ningbo will be larger than the previous year. Leading enterprises such as Sinopec, China Southern Power Grid, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China will participate in the exhibition.
Online activities decrease communication barriers and increase ways to connect. "Online display", "online conference" and "online negotiation" have been continuously improved, and the On-line CAEXPO has developed more and more powerful functions. Live promotion conferences, product launches, and "one-to-one" video matching activities are the "programs" for exhibition, economic and trade that are online all the year round, benefiting enterprises across the globe.
By "advancing", CAEXPO is meticulously crafted, improving quality and efficiency to optimize and upgrade. Domestic exhibition area is upgraded, exhibition sections for the new international land-sea corridor, China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone, international economy and production capacity cooperation and financial service will be continued to set up, the exhibition for innovative application of digital economy will be added, exhibition sections for information technology, intelligent equipment and green building materials will be upgraded.
The quality of foreign exhibition area is improved. "One country, one exhibition pavilion/section" is arranged for 10 ASEAN countries, increasing the number of exhibitors of leading enterprises and brand companies, and product certification and traceability system for ASEAN exhibits is introduced. International Pavilion for "Belt and Road" countries will be optimized with the focus on displaying featured industries of RCEP members. At present, enterprises from more than 20 countries including Pakistan, South Korea, and Japan have signed up for the exhibition.
With proper "advancing" and "defending", the China-ASEAN Expo has shown resilience, and has become a powerful engine for Guangxi to comprehensively deepen its opening-up and development, and to promote the continuous development of China-ASEAN economic and trade cooperation.
"After 18 years of development, the CAEXPO has become an important platform for mutual opening-up and cooperation between China and ASEAN, playing a positive role in shaping a new development paradigm." Liu Hongwu, Vice Governor of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said that Guangxi would continue to leverage the advantages of its unique location and major open platform to strengthen the role of "Nanning Channel", in serving the "10+1" cooperation, RCEP and the BRI. Through the exhibition value chain created by CAEXPO, trade and investment promotion mechanism on a regular basis will be established to build a China-ASEAN Expo with curtain that never falls.
