On July 23, 2008, the China-ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting was held in Singapore. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and foreign ministers of 10 ASEAN member countries attended the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, Yang said the past year has witnessed positive development of China-ASEAN cooperation with enhanced China-ASEAN strategic partnership, deepening cooperation between both sides and sound momentum of exchanges at all levels. China and ASEAN have also kept good communication and coordination in East Asia cooperation and major regional and international affairs.

Yang emphasized that China and ASEAN should intensify their cooperation in order to meet new challenges facing developing countries posed by the slowdown of world economy, the depreciation of U.S. dollar , surging oil and food prices, , rising trade protectionism and natural disasters. China is ready to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with ASEAN in the following nine aspects:

First, maintain high-level policy exchanges and contact at other levels, exchange views on bilateral and major issues and exchange development experience.

Second, keep close coordination. The Chinese government has decided to send an ambassador to ASEAN.

Third, push for the establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and speed up negotiations on the investment agreement to ensure that consensus can be reached within the year.

Fourth, gradually increase road, railway, waterway, aviation, port and information communications links.

Fifth, promote social and cultural exchanges and enhance cooperation on agriculture, energy, environmental protection and climate change.

Sixth, expand the ASEAN sub-regional cooperation, such as development of the Mekong River basin and the BIMP-EAGA.

Seventh, sign the MOU on Establishing "China-ASEAN Center" within the year as scheduled so as to offer information and services for bilateral cooperation.

Eighth, explore exchanges and cooperation in non-traditional security areas, enhance cooperation on disaster reduction and relief and upgrade the level of cooperation in counter-terrorism and combating transnational crimes.

Ninth, push forward the implementation of the follow-up actions of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, carry out dialogue among all parties in the South China Sea and advance pragmatic cooperation and common development in this area.

Yang said China highly values ASEAN's unique status and role in contributing significantly to safeguarding regional peace, promoting common development and realizing the long-term goal of building an East Asian community. China will, as always, support ASEAN's leading role in regional cooperation and support the development of the ASEAN Community and integration.

Meanwhile, for the part of ASEAN ministers, they expressed their sympathy to China in view of the massive and tragic loss of life in the Sichuan earthquake disaster. ASEAN foreign ministers said great achievements have been made in the dynamic ASEAN-China relations. Both sides have established strategic partnership and kept frequent high-level exchanges and contacts at other levels with deepening mutual understanding and fruitful cooperation of mutual benefits.

The ASEAN ministers expressed thanks to China for supporting ASEAN's development, noting that they deemed China their good partner sharing weal and woe with them. China's development offers huge opportunities for ASEAN, they said, expressing full agreement with China's proposals on enhancing bilateral cooperation. The ASEAN countries are ready to work with China to advance cooperation on the FTA development, infrastructure construction, energy security and climate change, promote humanities exchanges, especially youth contacts and strengthen coordination and cooperation in regional affairs, so as to jointly contribute to safeguarding regional peace and stability and promoting common development. The ASEAN ministers also said they sincerely wished the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games great success.