On 11 December 2017, the 7th Joint Council Meeting of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) was held in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The meeting was co-chaired by H.E. Ms. Elizabeth Buensuceso, Permanent Representative of the Philippines to ASEAN, and Ms. Jiang Qin, Chargé d’ Affairs of the Mission of China to ASEAN. The representatives of ASEAN Member States, China and ACC Secretariat attended the meeting.

H.E. Ms. Elizabeth Buensuceso stated that 2017 is a fruitful year for ASEAN-China relations. At the 20th ASEAN-China Summit concluded in Manila in November, both sides reached broad consensus on deepening strategic partnership by enhancing coordination between the Belt and Road Initiative and Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025, as well as jointly formulating ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership Vision 2030. Several joint statements on pushing forward practical cooperation in tourism, infrastructure connectivity and so on were issued. All of these created new and broad space for the bilateral relations. Both ASEAN-China Summit and ASEAN plus Three Summit fully underscored ACC’s important role in promoting practical cooperation and people-to-people exchanges and expected ACC to continue its efforts and achieve bigger developments.

Ms. Jiang Qin commended the notable achievements of ASEAN over the past 50 years and ASEAN-China relations. She mentioned that China always puts ASEAN high on its diplomatic agenda in developing ties with its neighbours and commits to be good neighbours, good friends and good partners sharing weal and woe with ASEAN. China would join hands with ASEAN to build a community of shared future with common ideals, common prosperity and common responsibility. As an important platform to promote China-ASEAN functional cooperation in all fields, ACC has celebrated its 6th anniversary of establishment. The development of ACC is a vivid demonstration of deeper cooperation and closer raltions between China and ASEAN. She wished ACC would continue to make full use of its unique advantages, mobilize more resources, keep exploration and take innovative measures to make more contribution to advancing China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership.

Members of the Joint Council respectively commended ACC’s tremendous efforts and fruitful achievements, under the leadership of Secretary-General Yang Xiuping, in prompting friendly exchanges and practical cooperation in trade, investment, education, culture, tourism as well as information and media between both sides encompassing the 50th anniversary of ASEAN and the ASEAN-China Year of Tourism Cooperation in 2017. They stated that next year will mark the 15th anniversary of ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership and the ASEAN-China Year of Innovation. They wished that ACC could continue to make greater contributions to all-around and in-depth development of bilateral relations by focusing on the priorities of ASEAN-China cooperation.

Secretary-General Yang Xiuping thanked members of the Joint Council for their long-term and strong support to ACC and herself. She said that ACC would continue to actively implement important consensus reached by leaders of both sides, and fully play its role of one-stop information and activities centre on the course charted by the Joint Council, and continuously raise its working standard, expand cooperation areas and channels, and substantively push forward friendly exchanges and practical cooperation between both sides in various areas.

The meeting listened to the report of the 7th Joint Executive Board of ACC by H. E. Mr. Jose Santiago Sta. Romana, Ambassador of the Philippines to China, deliberated on and adopted the Summary Record of the 6th Joint Council Meeting, the Annual Report of 2017, the Work Programme of 2018, and the Budget of Operational Expenditure of 2018. The Meeting also discussed the arrangements of the 8th Joint Council Meeting and other matters.