China and Southeast Asia should deepen their military ties and speed up negotiations on the creation of the world's most populous free trade area, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Monday.
At a summit marking the 15th anniversary of dialogue between China and the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), Wen also suggested signing a new agreement to expand already blossoming economic links, although he offered no details.
"We should expand military dialogue and exchanges, conduct and institutionalise defence co-operation," Wen told the leaders of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Wen said China and Asean should step up co-operation on cross-border issues concerning counter-terrorism, transnational crimes, maritime security, rescue operations and disaster relief, according to a copy of his speech that was provided to reporters.
Asean was formed in the late 1960s in a display of solidarity against communism in Southeast Asia, although economics and trade soon became its primary focus. In recent years, however, it has begun to be concerned with regional security issues - in part because much of the world's trade transits through its waters. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said the China-Asean dialogue was an important forum for security issues.
"In the light of recent events in North Korea, regional peace and security has never been more important," she said, alluding to Pyongyang's nuclear test on October 9. "It (Asean) helps tie the region together and strengthen solidarity in times of crisis," said Arroyo, who currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the association.
In a closing news conference, Arroyo also praised China's "hands-on role" in resolving the nuclear crisis. Wen said the forum was unanimously in favour of denuclearising the Korean peninsula and urged a resumption of six-party talks on the issue.
On the economic front, Asean and China have been moving towards a free trade area since 2002, progressively lowering tariffs on a range of goods. They are now discussing liberalising trade in services, which Wen said should move faster.
"Negotiation on trade in service and investment should be accelerated to speed up the process of establishing the China-Asean Free Trade Area," Wen said.
China, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are slated to drop tariffs on most normal products by 2010, while China and the remaining four Asean members - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam - will reach that goal five years later.
While analysts had not expected much concrete to come out of Monday's summit in Nanning, a couple of hours' drive north of the border with Vietnam, the meeting is a symbolic first in China and part of Beijing's efforts to deepen ties and allay fears of its emergence as an economic powerhouse.