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ASEAN countries no longer see China as a competitor but a collaborator, according to former President Gloria Arroyo.

The Pampanga second-district representative told an Asean conference on Tuesday that nobody in the region predicted China’s rise as a world power.

“Thirty-five years ago, China was beginning to wake up. The sleeping dragon was beginning to wake up. And in the region, everybody thought that China would become a competitor,” she said.

“We did not predict that China would become a class on its own,” Arroyo said.

“Today, we see China is not a competitor. It is a collaborator, a donor, a market,” she added.