On December 12, 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao of the State Council of China met with Chinese and foreign journalists in Kuala Lumpur and answered their questions.

Phoenix Satellite Television: Have you talked of the bird flu issue during the East Asia Summit? What forms of cooperation are there between China and ASEAN in this area?

Premier Wen: The prevention and control of bird flu is one of the priorities of our cooperation with ASEAN. China proposed strengthening information exchange and lab resource sharing with ASEAN, training technical personnel for ASEAN, providing drugs and vaccine for ASEAN, and establishing a joint prevention and control mechanism with ASEAN.

The Mainichi Newspapers of Japan: China-Japan relations are not good. Will it affect the 10+3 Leadership Meeting and the East Asia Summit?

Premier Wen: The leadership meeting between China, Japan and Korea is one part of the series of ASEAN meetings. Due to the poor atmosphere and foundation, this leadership meeting was postponed. It is not the Chinese side that shall be accountable for that. It is a result we are not willing to see. The worsening situation of China-Japan relationship is mainly caused by the wrong attitude of the Japanese leaders toward history, who visited the Yasukuni Shrine that enshrines Class A war criminals of the 2nd World War for 5 consecutive times. This severely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people, the Korean people and the people of other Asian countries. You know that the invasion in China by Japan brought tremendous catastrophes to the Chinese people with the casualties exceeding 35 million.

China and Japan are neighbors. We believe that developing a long-term stable China-Japan relationship complies with the fundamental interest of the two peoples. This is also our unswerving guideline, which China did not change even in the most difficult period. The key problem is that the Japanese leaders should conform to the global trend and take practical actions to prevent China-Japan relations from interference and damage in the spirit of taking history as the mirror and looking into the future.

China Central Television: What is your comment on ASEAN plus China Leadership Meeting? What are the main results of the meeting?

Premier Wen: China plus ASEAN leadership meeting is quite successful. It has been 15 years since China and ASEAN started dialogue and cooperation. We can say that there are achievements and progress every year with the cooperation between China and ASEAN. What is the key to this success? The key is that China and ASEAN countries are sincere to each other, respect each other and treat each other as equal partners. China is among the first group of non-ASEAN countries joining the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia. We signed The Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which laid a solid political foundation for developing the friendly cooperative relations with Southeast Asian countries. In this summit, China put forward a 5-point proposal, which is warmly welcome by ASEAN countries. The proposal include: first, taking the opportunity of the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the dialogue relations between China and ASEAN and the China-ASEAN Friendly Cooperation Year to conduct extensive commemorative activities so as to lay a solid social foundation for the long-term development of China-ASEAN relationship; second, summarizing the friendly cooperation experience between China and ASEAN and making comprehensive plans for the development direction of bilateral relations in the future; third, intensifying efforts to promote economic and trade cooperation and taking practical actions to build free trade area; fourth, identifying new cooperation priority areas, and helping poor countries and regions get out of poverty; fifth, strengthening the people-to-people exchange, especially the exchange between the youths.