Leaders of eight ASEAN member countries have arrived at Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to attend the a China-ASEAN Summit and an China-ASEAN Expo slated for Monday and Tuesday.

 

They include Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Myanmar Prime Minister General Soe Win, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

 

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont will arrive on Monday.

 

The China-ASEAN summit, the first ever held in China, is aimed at marking the 15th anniversary of China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations.

 

Premier Wen Jiabao will hold bilateral meetings with the ASEAN countries leaders respectively on the sidelines of the summit.

 

By 1991, China established diplomatic ties with all members of ASEAN. It became ASEAN's all-around dialogue-partnership country in 1996. Currently, China and ASEAN are bent on cementing the "strategic partnership oriented to peace and prosperity."

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2006)