China's New Silk Road plan should focus on strategic links to Southeast Asia
Winston Mok says they offer China a chance to redraw world's shipping map and energy routes
China's ambitious New Silk Road initiatives have continued to gather steam. From Central Asia to Europe, Southeast Asia to South Asia and Africa - the scope extends beyond infrastructure development to trade and investments. All things to all people, the all-inclusive, semi-global programme covers more than 60 per cent of the world's population.
It may be easier to define the ambitious "one belt, one road" programme by what is absent - the New Worlds that lay undiscovered in the age of the ancient Silk Road: the Americas and Australia.
To digest the significant overcapacities in China, it will perhaps take more than half the world. But the potential economic value to China varies significantly across regions. Europe is a large market. Africa and Middle East are important sources of raw materials and energy.
In China's backyard, not every country in Central Asia is resource-rich and most are small markets. What they have in common is a high level of corruption. So, Chinese companies will have to prudently assess the risks and returns of projects in these countries. Amid the wide scope, the New Silk Road may benefit from focusing on those areas promising the highest economic and strategic returns.
Southeast Asia appears to have responded most enthusiastically to China's New Silk Road overtures. And rightly so. For there, the economic logic may be most compelling. Since the time of Zheng He, when most kingdoms in the region were sparsely populated, Southeast Asia has seen tremendous population growth. The 600 million people in the region are now nine times the scale of Central Asia.
Other than trade within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China is Asean's leading trading partner. Asean is China's third-largest trading partner, after the EU and US. Most overseas Chinese live in the region. Greater mutual flows of goods, people and capital will promote economic growth for both sides.
When Premier Li Keqiang visited Bangkok earlier this year, he witnessed the inking of a deal for Chinese-financed and constructed rail lines in Thailand. They include a critical section of the strategic Kunming-Singapore railway, which will provide China better access to the 260 million consumers in mainland Southeast Asia - Indochina.
