BACKGROUND

The China phenomenon hardly needs any introduction, except that it is amazingly unabated, growing from strength to strength economically, politically, even socio-culturally. In time to come, some technological breakthrough may happen. By its geographical proximity and historical ties, it is inevitable that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is tied to the China factor. To capture the multi-dimensional aspects of ASEANChina economic relations, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies hosted the “ASEAN-China Economic Forum: Economic Cooperation and Challenges Ahead” on 20–21 April in Singapore. This edited volume of fourteen chapters contains the eleven revised conference papers and three additional nonconference essays to give it the well-rounded balance.

An overview in this chapter is meant to tease out the main findings and perceptions of each chapter, the details of which deserve the readers' perusal. It also aims to draw together the common denominators and issues in ASEAN-China economic relations, identifies the areas and topics which deserve continuing research efforts and work in the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and beyond. The dynamism in both ASEAN and China in the global economy context requires a constant pre-emptive mapping of emerging trends and developments for the future research agenda.

MAIN FINDINGS

John Wong's insightful consideration of “China's Economy in Search of New Development Strategies” is backed by statistical portrayals from 1990 to 2005. Readers are brought up to speed on China's new spurt of high growth, the present state of the Chinese economy, the need to change gears and reorient with China's rising international economic profile, sources of growth and need to fix many growth problems. Since China's first debut in the world economy in the early 1990s, the current high growth trajectory has witnessed the “WTO effect” and domestic investment impetus. While the rest of Asia was mired in the 1997 financial crisis, China's 2005 gross domestic product (GDP) almost trebled that of the early 1990s, a testimony of apparently unassailable growth.