Cooperation between China and ASEAN under the building of ASEAN Economic Community

Since the establishment of China-ASEAN strategic partnership, and the acceleration of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) building, China-ASEAN economic cooperation relationship has entered a new era. In the building of the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), ASEAN has a pivotal position and role, and ASEAN countries are key cooperation partners. In order to achieve the building goals of the BRI and AEC, China not only attaches great importance to the cooperative relationship with ASEAN, establishing and upgrading the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, advocating the establishment of a China-ASEAN community with a shared future, and agrees that ASEAN maintaining its leadership role in East Asia regional cooperation. At the same time, China and ASEAN are gradually implementing the BRI to dock with the ASEAN Community Blueprint and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity, and speeding up cooperation in trade, investment, and production capacity for win-win cooperation. However, China-ASEAN economic cooperation also faces challenges such as trade and investment competition, trade surplus, competition for dominance in economic cooperation, and the “China Threat” theory. In this regard, China and ASEAN need to coordinate the relationship among various cooperation mechanisms, optimize the structure of bilateral economic cooperation, implement a competitive negative list system, adjust the division of labor to achieve complementary advantages, so as to lay a solid foundation for building a China-ASEAN community with a shared future.