Jake's View | The joke is on Hong Kong in endless talks on Guangdong trade deal
It's 11 years and 17 talk shops since Hong Kong secured a so-called Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (Cepa) with the mainland, and the sum total of the achievement so far is a photo of Guangdong party secretary Hu Chunhua laughing in delight with Hong Kong's Leung Chun-ying over some secret joke.
Hong Kong and Guangdong are still working to tear down more barriers to cross-border trade in services, leaders of the two governments said yesterday, as business chiefs bemoaned the long wait for details…
Three paragraphs down, our report gives the game away - "'We are still trying to secure the endorsement from the Commerce Department,' [Guangdong Governor Zhu Xiaodan] said after attending the 17th cooperation meeting between the governments in Guangzhou."
I'll let you in on the secret. The joke is on Hong Kong.
What happened here is that following China's accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001, Beijing set up Cepa to introduce Hong Kong at an early stage to the trade relaxations expected from the WTO, particularly in trade with Guangdong. These relaxations never materialised, of course. The WTO has proved a failure.