Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

In his speech to the Indonesian parliament on October 3, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China wants to build "a community of common destiny" with ASEAN members to strengthen their ties. Six days later, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang proposed the 2+7 cooperation framework while attending the 16th China-ASEAN Summit.

These moves signal that China has started to try to find a direction for its bilateral relationship with ASEAN.

This new term, a community of common destiny, has attractively shown China's ambition in a more resolute and powerful manner. China does not only seek economic prosperity with ASEAN, but is trying to make both sides share a common future side-by-side. It will be a breakthrough in China-ASEAN relations if the goal can be achieved.

However, tough challenges remain. The key foundation of this community would be a common outlook on security, an area in which China and ASEAN member states have little consensus.

Both sides had a good relationship in terms of security cooperation in the 1980s, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia. But with the end of the Cold War and Vietnam joining ASEAN, there are no major security threats that both sides need to face together.

On the contrary, China and some ASEAN countries are losing their security ties, because more conflicts between them are emerging in the South China Sea.

Those conflicts are becoming more intense with the US rebalancing in the Asia-Pacific region. Some ASEAN countries such as the Philippines take this as an opportunity to make a grab at islands in the South China Sea.

For China, the Philippines' actions are nothing but provocations to China's sovereign integrity, so countermeasures have to be taken. But the countermeasures are often seen as China bullying the Philippines.

In fact, if the country does not descend itself to being a pawn of the US, China probably has no intention to hold a tit-for-tat attitude toward the Philippines over the South China Sea issue.

The profound disagreements in terms of security issues between China and ASEAN cannot be weakened or even addressed simply by deepening economic cooperation.

Theoretically, economic cooperation will cause a spillover effect, which can produce more dialogue and cooperation in the political and security realms. But the facts are different.

From the 1990s, China has been making huge efforts to enhance its economic relationship with ASEAN, for example vigorously promoting the China-ASEAN free trade area, but the mutual trust between both sides on security issues has not elevated as much as the volume of trade has.

Besides being dedicated to signing treaties of good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation with these countries, China's current ASEAN policy still puts the emphasis on economic cooperation.

China intensifying its efforts to update the free trade area and realize the interconnection of infrastructure between both sides has produced some economic effects, but the US will continue to be the patron of most ASEAN countries in political security.

Thus, the establishment of a community of common destiny cannot simply rely on economic cooperation.

The excessive economic "bonuses" and "benefits" handed out by China to ASEAN will not only impose heavy burdens on the Chinese economy, but make ASEAN countries more alert and careful for fear of being too dependent on China.

China has to face the challenges of the South China Sea issues in a direct and political fashion. There is no compromise in sovereignty, but how to administer and control the problems incurred by sovereignty issues within the new framework of China-ASEAN political security is a real test for the Chinese leadership.

This community of common destiny surely should be shared by both China and ASEAN. China needs to reconsider its policy while meeting these goals, and ASEAN should revamp its ideology to deal with a peacefully rising China.

The author is an associate research fellow at the Institute of International Relations, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn