Overseas Chinese business can build bridges for the new maritime silk road
He Yafei says overseas Chinese businesses, with their knowledge of local conditions, can play a critical role in China's push for a new maritime silk road to deepen regional economic relations
This year, China will begin building a new maritime silk road to revive a route that historically contributed to its flourishing economic ties with neighbours in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Indeed, Southeast Asia is an integral part of this ancient maritime route that originated in Quanzhou , in what is now Fujian province .
History is a mirror. The fastest growth of bilateral trade and investment for China in the past decade has been with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with total trade reaching US$400 billion in 2012, a five-fold increase in 10 years, and two-way investments exceeding US$100 billion, a three-fold increase in the same period.
The target for the China-Asean free trade agreement is US$1 trillion in bilateral trade and an additional US$150 billion in two-way investments by 2020.
Financial co-operation, currency swaps, the creation of an infrastructure bank and increased connectivity are all expected to come within the bounds of the agreement. The maritime silk road will inject new meaning and life into the expansion of economic ties between China and Asean members in the years to come.
Large numbers of Chinese - estimates put the figure at 30 million or more - have migrated to Southeast Asia, for historical and geographic reasons. And they are well-off. A 2009 report put the total global assets of overseas Chinese businesses at around US$3.9 trillion, of which up to US$1.2 trillion is in the hands of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. About a third of the top 500 global overseas Chinese companies can be found in Asean countries. Moreover, 70 per cent of the companies listed on Southeast Asian stock markets are overseas-Chinese owned.