ABS-CBN Interactive (The Philippines)
China is building global spheres of influence. It just had a summit with the ASEAN heads of state October 30. Both sides have been carrying on an annual dialogue for the past fifteen years.
China is building global spheres of influence. It just had a summit with the ASEAN heads of state October 30. Both sides have been carrying on an annual dialogue for the past fifteen years.
As soon as the ASEAN leaders left, China played host to more than 40 heads of state from Africa, both despots and democrats.
The main reason for these diplomatic offensives is economic and political. China wants to tap ASEAN’s burgeoning consumer market of more than 500 million, half of whom are middle class. ASEAN investors have invested over $3.1 billion in China. Chinese investors have invested a puny $158 million in ASEAN. China has promised to increase its investments in ASEAN. The Chinese want to trade, not invest. They want to lend or give away money. They do not have enough entrepreneurs and managers willing to run factories and enterprises abroad. If you already have a market of 1.3 billion, why bother to invest abroad?
China is bent on becoming a superpower ahead of the US by 2020. Already, China is the world’s second-largest economy, in purchasing power parity (PPP) or what its dollars can buy in local products. It is also the richest in terms of international reserves, an unheard of $1 trillion. Reserves are a kind of checking account where you charge everything you buy from abroad, whether products or services. China is the US’s biggest lender.
China is the referee in the current brouhaha involving North Korea which conducted an apparently successful nuclear test recently. George Bush is angry. The Chinese are pretending to be angry. But clearly, Kim Jong Il is Beijing’s fair-haired boy. He puts the Americans on their toes and distracts them from looking for Osama bin Laden and from carrying on a fight with the Chinese over a number of issues, like Spratlys and alleged human rights abuses.
In 2005, China- ASEAN trade hit a new peak of $130 billion, 15 times the figure in 1991. At 20 percent growth per year, trade could easily reach $200 billion by 2008, two years ahead of the 2010 target. At $200 billion, China’s trade with ASEAN will equal that with Europe and North America.
China is now ASEAN’s fourth-largest trading partner and ASEAN is China’s fourth largest as well.
The ASEAN-China cooperation has expanded from five to ten priority areas, namely, agriculture, information and communication technology (ICT), human resource development (HRD), two-way investment, Mekong River Basin development, transportation, energy, culture, tourism and public health.
By 2010, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will come into full force for the six original ASEAN members–the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei. FTA will be extended to the other ASEAN members–Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar by 2015.
China also promises to be the biggest source of tourists for the ASEAN. Last year, three million Chinese tourists visited ASEAN cities. Malaysia now attracts half a million Chinese tourists yearly.
ASEAN’s 500 million people and China’s 1.3 billion constitute the world’s largest consumer market and the fastest-growing in terms of economic power.
Consider the following per capita incomes in purchasing power parity dollars: Brunei $25,343; Singapore $24,853; Malaysia $9,857; Thailand $7,488; Philippines $4,482; Indonesia $3,130; Vietnam $2,491, Laos $1,898; Cambodia 1,428; and Myanmar $1,408.
On the other hand, China wants to use Africa as the main source of its oil and other precious raw materials. The region already provides 40 percent of China’s oil imports. That ratio is likely to increase to 60 percent by 2020. Last year, China-Africa trade totaled close to $40 billion. The potential for growth is big.
E-mail tonylopez@biznewsasia.com
China is building global spheres of influence. It just had a summit with the ASEAN heads of state October 30. Both sides have been carrying on an annual dialogue for the past fifteen years.
As soon as the ASEAN leaders left, China played host to more than 40 heads of state from Africa, both despots and democrats.
The main reason for these diplomatic offensives is economic and political. China wants to tap ASEAN’s burgeoning consumer market of more than 500 million, half of whom are middle class. ASEAN investors have invested over $3.1 billion in China. Chinese investors have invested a puny $158 million in ASEAN. China has promised to increase its investments in ASEAN. The Chinese want to trade, not invest. They want to lend or give away money. They do not have enough entrepreneurs and managers willing to run factories and enterprises abroad. If you already have a market of 1.3 billion, why bother to invest abroad?
China is bent on becoming a superpower ahead of the US by 2020. Already, China is the world’s second-largest economy, in purchasing power parity (PPP) or what its dollars can buy in local products. It is also the richest in terms of international reserves, an unheard of $1 trillion. Reserves are a kind of checking account where you charge everything you buy from abroad, whether products or services. China is the US’s biggest lender.
China is the referee in the current brouhaha involving North Korea which conducted an apparently successful nuclear test recently. George Bush is angry. The Chinese are pretending to be angry. But clearly, Kim Jong Il is Beijing’s fair-haired boy. He puts the Americans on their toes and distracts them from looking for Osama bin Laden and from carrying on a fight with the Chinese over a number of issues, like Spratlys and alleged human rights abuses.
In 2005, China- ASEAN trade hit a new peak of $130 billion, 15 times the figure in 1991. At 20 percent growth per year, trade could easily reach $200 billion by 2008, two years ahead of the 2010 target. At $200 billion, China’s trade with ASEAN will equal that with Europe and North America.
China is now ASEAN’s fourth-largest trading partner and ASEAN is China’s fourth largest as well.
The ASEAN-China cooperation has expanded from five to ten priority areas, namely, agriculture, information and communication technology (ICT), human resource development (HRD), two-way investment, Mekong River Basin development, transportation, energy, culture, tourism and public health.
By 2010, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will come into full force for the six original ASEAN members–the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei. FTA will be extended to the other ASEAN members–Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar by 2015.
China also promises to be the biggest source of tourists for the ASEAN. Last year, three million Chinese tourists visited ASEAN cities. Malaysia now attracts half a million Chinese tourists yearly.
ASEAN’s 500 million people and China’s 1.3 billion constitute the world’s largest consumer market and the fastest-growing in terms of economic power.
Consider the following per capita incomes in purchasing power parity dollars: Brunei $25,343; Singapore $24,853; Malaysia $9,857; Thailand $7,488; Philippines $4,482; Indonesia $3,130; Vietnam $2,491, Laos $1,898; Cambodia 1,428; and Myanmar $1,408.
On the other hand, China wants to use Africa as the main source of its oil and other precious raw materials. The region already provides 40 percent of China’s oil imports. That ratio is likely to increase to 60 percent by 2020. Last year, China-Africa trade totaled close to $40 billion. The potential for growth is big.
E-mail tonylopez@biznewsasia.com
1 comment:
This is a kind of role model of leaderships we want for Cambodia. Since from the first century, we found in the history only Cambodian leadership with very limited intelligence who know only how to create suffering to tehir own people and stole their people properties and exploited their people for living. We have never seen any leaders with longterm vision, global vision to find foods, business, trade and security for their people. In this 21 century, china have led the world with a group of good role model leadership with quality, capacity and good global vision. If we want to suceed our Nation, we must learn from these group of leadership. These leaders role model will help us to remove all idiots leadership who only stay to steal land from people and deposited their monies in overseas bank. I really like to congratulate to all of these fantastic leadership of China.
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