President Xi Jinping’s royal reception in Britain last week, is a golden opportunity for China to trump America and its 12 nation Trans Pacific Partnership – agreed but not yet ratified confidential outline agreement — aimed to elevate America and Japan as the lead economies in Asia, and brake China’s ascent as a global leader.
In the wake of the 12 nation TPP realpolitik agreement, spearheaded by America as part of its strategic military “pivot to Asia” that deliberately excludes China, Xi Jinping can respond by launching China’s Axis of Trade – a trade partnership between China, Europe and Latin America, to be based in Hong Kong.
If imperialist-capitalist America is going to be more assertive in Asia because of Beijing’s “geoeconomic power,” why shouldn’t China be more economically-business assertive as well in Europe and Latin America?
Beijing’s existing One Belt, One Road and pursuit of the rival free-trade agreement linking the 10 Asean member counties with China, South Korea and Japan in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, is not enough.
Hong Kong, like America, is the product of a colonial British parent with Chinese, Dutch and Latino influences. America and Hong Kong are today populated by American, British, Dutch and Spanish descendants of imperialists and their slaves. Both America and Hong Kong are melting pots of people, cultures and civilizations.
Hong Kong’s best-known poet, Leung Ping-kwan, said at the dawn of the 21st century about living cultural contradictions: “I think this kind of position helps you see things from more than one perspective. One is less extreme. One encounters, all the time, different layers of history, enough to remind you that your presence is not the only reality, your view is not the only truth. One undergoes self-negation, self-congratulation, and at the end still is looking for self-identities.”
Hong Kong, is again searching for its identity. Having played a historical key role in mainstream Chinese trade for several thousand years, why not again?
In 1000, Hong Kong was a key salt production and pearl harvesting center, as well as a major duty collection post for international trade – a role it played through the 20th century.
A series of trade routes collectively known as the Silk Road was China’s land link with Central Asia and Europe. Merchants and goods flowed freely between East and West, from Hong Kong to Rome. Marco Polo, Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great all traversed its diverse branches.
Spain began its overseas empire in the 15th century with the colonization of the Atlantic Canaries and Madeiras Islands. There were two Spanish empires, the European empire and the South American Empire, which included Guam and the Philippines. The biggest boost to trading with Asia came with Spain’s discovery of silver in newly conquered Mexico, Bolivia and Peru in the early 16th century. When galleon trade across the Pacific between Acapulco and Manila started in 1572, Spanish silver began flowing into Asia in huge quantities. Mexican silver coins can still be found today in antique shops in China and Hong Kong.
The Philippines had an economy based on selling spices, silks, tea and Chinese goods to South America, mainly Mexico. Unlike Portugal, the Spanish had no enrepot like Macau on Chinese territory, so the Chinese merchants brought their goods directly to Manila by junk from Hong Kong and other mainland ports.
In the middle of the 19th century, at the time of the Opium War, the Chinese empire was in decline and the Spanish Empire, driven by evangelism, was close to collapse. On the other hand, the British Empire was on a high. The main driving force behind the British Empire was commerce. British trading posts, often little more than fortified warehouses, sprang up all over the world. These godowns developed into fortresses, then towns and eventually grew into full-fledged colonies like America and Hong Kong.
China and Britain, like the U.S. and Britain, have fought each other in the past. If the U.S. and Britain can make up after a revolutionary war, surely China and Britain can make up after their skirmishes and the 1997 handover.
Xi Jinping can launch CAT in Britain during his upcoming trip to Britain and Europe on the heels of his recent trip to the Americas.
The question today, now that America has thrown the TPP trade gauntlet down because of China’s trade challenge, is why China shouldn’t widen its Silk Road initiative to Europe and Latin America and have its traditional trading partners openly traverse it through Hong Kong again?
Just like America has excluded China from the TPP, China can exclude America from CAT, unless of course, America changes its mind and includes China in the TPP. Either way, China and Hong Kong win — and Hong Kong becomes a truly international city again!
The author is a strategic consultant, co-founder of the Pets Central network of veterinary hospitals and author of the Custom Maid series of books.