China's good-neighborly diplomacy promotes affinity

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 -- With intensive top-level visits to enhance intra-regional cooperation and communication, China is effectively making its ties with neighbors closer, further bolstering its appeal.

Deeply rooted in its culture, good-neighborliness has been China's longtime political tradition, which the current government incorporates in its diplomacy.

Aided by the frequent reciprocal visits among leaders, China and its neighbors jointly consolidate the social and public opinion foundations for long-term development of their ties, through strengthened public and grass-root diplomacy, as well as people-to-people exchanges.

In a diplomatic work conference held on Oct. 24-25 in Beijing, President Xi Jinping described the principles of China's neighbor diplomacy as amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness, which guides China as it makes more friends in an amicable neighborhood.

Many stories spoke of mutual help in the region. For example, during the 1997 Southeast Asia financial crisis, China kept the value of the RMB yuan, helping countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to weather the turmoil.

With mutual support in such moments, China and ASEAN members have in recent years worked together to defeat challenges like the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Wenchuan earthquake, SARS and bird flu. The two-way ties developed in leaps and bounds, and the interconnection and interdependence between them has never been closer.

More than 1,000 commercial flights every week between the two sides, and last year saw 15 million people traveled between China and ASEAN countries, four times the amount ten years ago.

Northward, China also furthered its ties with Russia. After the 2004 hostage incident that took the lives of more than 330 people at a primary school in Beslan, Russia, the Chinese government invited traumatized children to get convalescent treatment in China.

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