Community with a shared future: From economic partners to trusted partners

Editor's note: Jessica Durdu, a special commentator for CGTN, is a foreign affairs specialist with a PhD in law. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

When the 23rd China-ASEAN Expo opens in Nanning on September 17, it will represent much more than another gathering of businesses, officials and investors. In the fifth anniversary year of the China-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the event offers an opportunity to consider a broader transformation across the region: China and ASEAN are gradually moving from highly interconnected economic partners to partners whose development prospects are increasingly intertwined.

The evolution of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area illustrates this transition particularly well. The original logic of a free trade agreement was comparatively straightforward: lower barriers and enable goods to move more efficiently. CAFTA 3.0 goes considerably further.

The upgrade expands cooperation into areas including the digital economy, green economy and supply-chain connectivity, alongside competition and consumer protection. Its supply-chain provisions explicitly address connectivity, potential bottlenecks, resilience and the adoption of digital technologies. In other words, the relationship is evolving from simply facilitating what countries trade toward shaping how their economies produce, connect and grow together.

This matters because contemporary economic partnerships are no longer defined only at the border. A product assembled in an ASEAN country may depend on Chinese machinery, components, digital platforms or logistics networks, while ASEAN resources, intermediate goods and expanding consumer markets feed into Chinese production and consumption. The result is an increasingly interconnected regional economic ecosystem.

RCEP reinforces this architecture on a wider scale. Together with CAFTA 3.0, it helps transform geographical proximity into institutional and economic connectivity. Rather than viewing regional economies as isolated markets, these frameworks encourage businesses to think in terms of regional production networks.

This is particularly visible at this year's China-ASEAN Expo, where artificial intelligence and smart technologies will receive significant attention. That focus is revealing. Twenty years ago, China-ASEAN economic cooperation was discussed predominantly through tariffs, merchandise trade and infrastructure. Today, conversations increasingly include artificial intelligence, e-commerce, smart manufacturing, renewable energy and digital connectivity. CAFTA 3.0 institutionalizes this transition precisely.

It also has an important development dimension. Digital platforms can allow small ASEAN producers to reach Chinese consumers without building a traditional international distribution network. Improved customs procedures and digital trade systems can similarly reduce transaction costs for smaller enterprises. Green technologies can support industrial development while responding to the region's sustainability requirements.

Shared growth therefore does not simply mean making the economic pie larger. It increasingly means creating mechanisms that let more businesses and communities participate in regional prosperity.

The numbers alone tell an important story. China-ASEAN trade exceeded $1 trillion in 2025, with China and ASEAN remaining each other's largest trading partners for the sixth consecutive year. Yet trade figures, impressive as they are, tell only part of the story. Governments sign agreements and companies build supply chains, but societies give relationships resilience.

Therefore, the more consequential development is what is emerging underneath them: increasingly integrated industrial chains, digital connections, green development projects, institutional cooperation and, perhaps most importantly, growing interaction between people. This is where the idea of a "community with a shared future" becomes tangible.

Here, recent developments are particularly significant. During the 2024-2025 ASEAN-China Year of People-to-People Exchanges, nearly 200 major exchange activities were organized. From January to August 2025 alone, more than 25 million visits were recorded between ASEAN countries and the Chinese mainland, while scheduled passenger flights averaged more than 2,500 per week. Visa facilitation has continued to expand, including China's introduction of the "ASEAN Visa."

These figures represent something more important than tourism statistics. Every student studying abroad, entrepreneur attending an exhibition, tourist discovering another culture, and researcher working with foreign colleagues adds another human connection to the architecture.

Nanning therefore offers something of a laboratory for the broader China-ASEAN relationship: ideas discussed at the political level are translated into transactions and relationships at the economic and societal levels.

The direction is already visible institutionally. China and ASEAN have established dozens of cooperation mechanisms, while China has reached important understandings with eight ASEAN member states on building bilateral communities with a shared future.

As China and ASEAN enter the next stage of their comprehensive strategic partnership, the central question is therefore no longer simply how much they can trade. It is how deeply they can align their development strategies while ensuring cooperation continues to deliver visible benefits for ordinary people.

A community with a shared future is ultimately built neither by slogans nor statistics alone. It emerges when supply chains connect factories, digital networks connect businesses, transportation connects cities, and, above all, people connect with people.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on X to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)