China should provide disaster relief in ASEAN region to ensure sustainability of economic ties

After a powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar on Wednesday ( coming just hours after a deadly earthquake struck Italy), China and its neighbors should expedite cooperation over disaster relief, despite the fact that the road for promoting political and social links in East Asia and Southeast Asia is always bumpy due to the complexity of geopolitical issues.

Media reports said the earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 has left at least four people dead and damaged scores of centuries- old Buddhist pagodas in Myanmar. We believe China will certainly be willing to lend a hand to Myanmar not least because of the ties China has built with the Southeast Asian country.

The Chinese embassy in Myanmar has issued an urgent notice to remind Chinese citizens travelling to the Southeast Asian country of precautions against earthquakes and aftershocks. It is not hard to imagine Chinese people will put their travel plans on hold to Myanmar after this warning.

This would be an unfortunate impediment to the development of Myanmar’s tourism industry, an increasing important contributor to the country’s economy. China has cooperated with ASEAN countries before in natural disaster monitoring and sharing lessons in handling major natural disasters. But at a time when Chinese tourists begin to show a greater interest in travelling to ASEAN countries, some of which are rich in historical and cultural resources, but have limited capability in disaster relief, the Chinese government may have to speed up cooperation with ASEAN countries over disaster relief to provide early warnings and emergency response during disasters.

It may even be necessary to set up an emergency response mechanism for relief work among China and ASEAN countries to help with largescale evacuations from disasterhit areas and implement overseas rescue operations, which will also improve ASEAN countries’ capabilities during disasters to ensure the safety of the population.

However, given the complex geopolitical landscape of East Asia and Southeast Asia, cooperation over disaster relief should, more realistically, be implemented step by step with patience and openness. In past years, China has dispatched troops to take part in joint humanitarian rescue and disaster relief exercises held by ASEAN members along with other countries. Hopefully such cooperation can continue and ASEAN countries will be open to working with China.

As closer economic relationships have been established among China and ASEAN countries, all sides will have to broaden the scope of cooperation including disaster relief to ensure the long- term sustainability of economic ties.