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| Monday, 3 November 2003 |
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China's Wen calls for "new security concept" for Asia BEIJING, Sunday (AFP) Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao opened the second annual Boao Asian economic forum Sunday, urging leaders of the region and other participants to step up efforts to promote economic growth and regional security. "The new situation in this new century has provided Asia with many new opportunities for development," Wen told the two-day conference of some 1,200 government and business leaders and academics on southern China's tropical Hainan Island. "Peace and development remains the main themes of our era," he said in a speech carried by China Central Television. However, he cautioned that "impediments" to regional peace continued to exist and urged regional governments to "cultivate a new security concept" while pushing forward inter-dependent regional economic growth. "Asia is also faced with new challenges and impediments to peace and development still exist," Wen said. "Traditional and non-traditional threats are interwoven and make the security situation a lot more complicated. The unfair and inequitable old international political and economic order remains largely intact." "We should proceed from the larger interests of Asia's development, cultivate a new security concept featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation," he said. Leaders attending the forum included Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov, Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa and Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho, Xinhua news agency reported. Deputy premiers from South Korea, Vietnam, Turkmenistan and Laos were also in attendance. However, regional heavyweights, like Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who attended the first ever Boao meeting last year, opted not to attend this year's two day meeting. China has hoped to make the Boao Forum, named after the Hainan city where the talks are held, an Asian version of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, bringing together decision makers and opinion leaders from government, business and academia. However, the first meeting, in April last year, was widely criticized for poor preparation and accompanying logistical chaos. |
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