Macroscope | Water: the ultimate liquid asset
Markets pay more attention to price of oil but water’s geopolitical importance cannot be ignored
In any country there are two truly liquid assets that drive economic activity but while one of those, oil, attracts reams of analytical attention, the other, water, rarely gets a mention.
But issues surrounding water supply have geopolitical and economic effects on a local and global scale.
In the case of Hong Kong, its dependency on water supplies from China was not lost on British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s team as it sought to negotiate with Beijing the terms of 1984’s Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong’s future.
That dependency remains, but while there was a commemoration, in January, of 50 years of fresh water supply to Hong Kong from the Dongjiang, there is no room for complacency, either in Beijing or Hong Kong, as China itself has a fresh water problem.
“One of the most serious problems for China today and in the foreseeable future is the water crisis caused by rapid socio-economic development, urbanisation, industrialisation, uneven water distribution, water pollution and inefficient water use,” Oxford University’s Haiyan Helen Yu wrote last month in an article posted on the Global Water Forum website.
With major lakes along the Yangtze River drying up, as Xinhua reported recently, China’s water problem is spreading across the country, with accompanying social and industrial challenges, even as China is seeking to adjust to a more consumer-oriented economic model.