Sharon Hu, journalist for Southern Finance Omnimedia Corp (SFC)

Impact by the so-called "reciprocal tariffs" of the U.S. government, the pattern of globalization is facing reconstruction. Against this backdrop, how to build a China-ASEAN common market to counter unilateralism has become a key topic for discussion between China and ASEAN.

Recently, Rebecca Fatima STA Maria, former Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat and Deputy Chancellor of Sunway University in Malaysia, said in an exclusive interview with the 21st Century Business Herald during the Third China-ASEAN Economic Relations Seminar that, for both China and ASEAN, establishing a China-ASEAN common market is a grand goal. This will inject impetus into the development of ASEAN and also promote ASEAN to reflect on its own economic integration process.

Rebecca proposed that one of the important areas of cooperation in the China-ASEAN common market is the service industry. International trade includes both trade in goods and trade in services. Currently, there is still a deficit in service trade between China, ASEAN and the U.S., which is quite different from the situation in trade in goods. She believes that this will be a development opportunity for China and ASEAN to establish a common market, which can consolidate the position of China and ASEAN in international trade.

In recent years, economic and trade exchanges between China and ASEAN have maintained a good growth momentum. Data from the General Administration of Customs of China shows that in the first quarter of 2025, ASEAN continued to hold the position of China's largest trading partner, and its proportion in China's overall foreign trade increased to 16.6%. With the development of economic and trade, the regional economic integration process between China and ASEAN is also accelerating. The industrial chains of the two sides are closely linked, driving the rapid development of imports and exports of upstream and downstream products.