JAKARTA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- As two ancient civilizations in Asia, China and Indonesia started their friendly communication and exchanges over 2,000 years ago. About 600 years ago, famous Chinese explorer Zheng He visited Indonesia many times during his seven voyages to the west, leaving legacies of friendly interactions between his crew and local people.

More than six decades ago, Indonesia was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and the two countries, along with other Asian and African countries, introduced the "Bandung Spirit" featuring peaceful coexistence and seeking common ground while shelving difference at the Asian-African Conference in 1955.

In October 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Indonesia, during which he proposed to build the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The two countries also agreed to upgrade bilateral relations to comprehensive strategic partnership, paving the way for robust cooperation and frequent personnel exchanges in the following six years.

HIGH-LEVEL CONTACT

Over the past six years, President Xi has visited Indonesia twice, while Indonesian President Joko Widodo has visited China for five times. In May last year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Indonesia, the first stop of his first overseas trip since the new cabinet took office in March.

In April this year, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla attended the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, and the two countries signed important cooperative documents such as the guidelines on the construction of the regional comprehensive economic corridor in Indonesia, starting a new journey of the two countries jointly implementing China's Belt and Road Initiative and Indonesia's Vision of Global Maritime Fulcrum.

The two sides have also kept communicating and cooperating on areas such as political security, economic, trade and investment and people-to-people exchanges through various levels of mechanisms, and have reached broad consensus.

ECONOMIC COOPERATION

In 2018, the trade value between China and Indonesia reached 77.4 billion U.S. dollars, with China being Indonesia's largest trading partner for eight consecutive years.

Currently, China is also Indonesia's third largest foreign direct investment (FDI) source country, with China's FDI to Indonesia reaching 2.29 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of this year, close to its whole-year investment last year.

All key projects of the landmark Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway (HSR), carried out by a joint venture consortium of Chinese and Indonesian state-owned firms, have started construction, and the Walini tunnel became the first breakthrough tunnel of the railway in May.

Once the high-speed railway is completed and put into commercial service in 2021, the travel time between Jakarta and Bandung would be slashed from the current over three hours to only 40 minutes.

Besides the HSR project, many bilateral cooperative projects in infrastructure, capacity-building, digital economy and other fields are also bringing economic and social benefits to both countries.

PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE EXCHANGES

In 2018, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia reached a new high of over 2.1 million. For years, China has been the major tourist source country for Indonesia, with the number of Chinese tourists this year expected to breach 2.5 million.

China is also the "apple of the eye" of Indonesian students. The number of Indonesian students studying in China has exceeded 15,000, and the number is growing rapidly.

People-to-people exchanges in other areas such as culture, media, think-tank, youth, religion, science and technology, and sports are also flourishing. In August last year, Indonesia successfully held the Asian Games, and China sent the highest-level government delegation to the sports event in nearly 20 years to attend the opening ceremony.

INTERNATIONAL ARENA

Both as members of the G20 and important emerging economies in the world, China and Indonesia have been maintaining smooth communication and cooperation on world and regional issues.

The two leaders met several times on international and multilateral diplomatic events such as the G20 summit and APEC meetings, shouldered international responsibilities, actively communicated and mediated on hot and difficult regional issues, and held hands to cope with major global issues as well as jointly safeguarded the common interests of both countries and other developing countries.

In an interview with Xinhua in 2018, Indonesian Ambassador to China Djauhari Oratmangun said that China and Indonesia are now seeing their best level of bilateral relations with extensive reciprocal visits between senior officials, influx of Chinese investments, tourists and growing trade.

He said Indonesia and China would play very important roles in the future in generating regional economy through regional forums that they have been actively involved in. Enditem

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