How to deal with the unprecedented security threats that Asia faces tops the agenda at the two-day Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, which opened in Beijing on Thursday.

In particular, the shadows of war looming over the Korean Peninsula, as a result of the repeated nuclear and missile tests by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in defiance of the latest UN Security Council resolution, and the tensions building up in the South China Sea as a result of the frequent "freedom of navigation" operations being conducted by the United States, which challenge China's maritime sovereignty, pose severe and worsening threats to regional peace and stability.

They also risk compromising economic prosperity in Asia, which accounts for more than one-third of the world's GDP and is home to 60 percent of the world's population.