House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo recently met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to address the pressing issues in the world.
She said China was not a threat but instead a partner in development.
“The world must look at China’s rise as an opportunity rather than a threat,” Arroyo said.
With China poised to become the world’s leading economy, developing countries including the Philippines should further boost their ties
with Beijing instead of looking at it as a competitor or a threat, Arroyo said Thursday night.
Arroyo, who attended the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in Hainan, China, said China through the years had proven wrong the negative notions of its policies toward reform, and that it had become a partner in development as a result of its opening up.
Arroyo is a member of the board of BFA, which gathers together leaders in government, business and academic institutions throughout Asia to share their thoughts on the most pressing issues in the region and the world.
Arroyo and Li met at the Boao Forum for Asia.
She said their discussion mainly covered the direction China was taking on its 40th year of reforms and its relationship with the rest of the world.
The meeting was one of the highlights of the BFA Annual Conference 2019.
During the meeting, Arroyo cited China’s leadership in promoting “Globalization V.2” or the Belt and Road Initiative aimed to foster cooperation and development.
She praised the Chinese leadership’s implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s socialism with Chinese characteristics, saying China’s remarkable growth particularly in the past two decades showed the world that no development model could be applied universally, and that the diversity of historical conditions would determine the development paths that countries could choose.
