Asia should manage its own security and not allow itself to become an “arena for geopolitical contests”, one of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s most senior lieutenants has said, in a veiled rebuke to US efforts to strengthen alliances.Zhao Leji, a member of the Communist party’s elite Standing Committee, also called for closer trade ties in the region to build a “common regional market”, saying Asia was already the source of most of the world’s economic growth.

“We should jointly maintain security in Asia,” Zhao, who is also head of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, told the opening session of China’s premier international conference, the Boao Forum for Asia. “We must always keep in our hands the future of lasting peace and security in Asia.”

China has long railed against what it calls US hegemony in the region, particularly in recent years as tensions have grown over Beijing’s territorial claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea.