At a summit meeting on Indonesia's Bali resort island this week, China is set to sign three key pacts with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including a "strategic" tie-up accord that has raised the eyebrows of many analysts.

The ASEAN-China Declaration on Strategic Partnership, to be signed by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and his counterparts from the 10 ASEAN member states, will elevate cooperation to "a higher and more comprehensive dimension," an ASEAN official said.

"This is the first time ASEAN is calling an agreement with any of its dialogue partners as strategic -- strategic in the sense that it is all-encompassing cooperation," the official added.

Aside from the pact, China will sign documents acceding to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation -- effectively a non-aggression pact -- and endorse a protocol that will give several Southeast Asian states early benefits under a free trade area to be be jointly developed by 2010.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi meanwhile has only one agreement scheduled for signing with the ASEAN leaders -- the Framework for Comprehensive Economic Partnership -- aimed at strengthening linkages with a provision for a joint free trade area sometime in the future, officials said.