BEIJING (Reuters) -China urged Cambodia and Thailand to continue efforts towards restoring a lasting peace at their border as soon as possible, a Chinese foreign ministry statement said on Friday as it summarised an earlier trilateral meeting.
In the statement, China reiterated its support for the Southeast Asia nations to achieve a sustainable ceasefire after the worst clashes in their long-running border dispute in more than a decade.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Thai and Cambodian counterparts on Thursday for a discussion on the sidelines of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in China’s southwestern Yunnan province.
At the regional meeting, Wang proposed deepening cooperation in agriculture, water resources, environmental governance as well as in new fields such as energy storage, electric vehicles and photovoltaics.
He also spoke about greater law enforcement cooperation including setting up a platform for the protection of overseas citizens, without specifying which nationalities, and working together to tackle cross-border crime.
The meeting also discussed establishing a legal and judicial exchange and cooperation mechanism as soon as possible, the Chinese ministry readouts showed.
Separately, Wang had an informal meeting with his counterparts from Thailand, Myanmar and Laos on Friday, at which he said China hoped that Myanmar would hold a fair election and restore stability.
Myanmar’s military this month nominally transferred power to a civilian-led interim administration to conduct an election in December and January, four years after it removed the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from office, sparking a civil war.
Describing the regional security situation as “not optimistic”, the Chinese minister reinforced a message of strengthening joint operations for border control, according to one of the statements.
(Reporting by Liz Lee and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Kate Mayberry)
