China eyes Asean trade ties, but members fear ‘geopolitical trap’ as US also seeks regional influence
- Chinese firms setting up factories close to Asean countries reflects how manufacturers are moving to Southeast Asia to avoid US tariffs on Chinese goods
- Beijing’s plans for a land-sea corridor in western China, unveiled four years ago, were seen as an initiative for that less-developed region, but now they’re crucial
This is the first story in a two-part series about how China’s years-long drive to enhance trade infrastructure and bolster ties is yielding greater connectivity with Southeast Asia.
As the shovels broke ground on a factory in a Chinese port city near Vietnam two years ago, an ambitious plan was put in motion by new-energy-materials provider CNGR to shore up the firm’s trade links for years to come.
At this site in Qinzhou, a port city next to Vietnam, a phase-one investment of 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) has resulted in a factory that will serve as a base for CNGR to receive shipments of nickel and other minerals from its Indonesian base or partners, and will produce a key element in lithium batteries.
Spanning hundreds of acres in Qinzhou, Guangxi province, the site was chosen to best serve the company’s geologically diverse clients. The first phase was put into production just over a year ago, and two phases remain, at a total cost of 33 billion yuan over an undisclosed number of years.
“It can be used as a bridgehead to connect overseas resources and logistics,” Hu Peihong, general manager of the CNGR base, told a media delegation in May. “We built and operated the industrial base [phase one] in such a short period of time so we can work with overseas partners and replicate it quickly out of China.”
One of the benefits is that shipping from the Chinese port city of Qinzhou to the Vietnamese industrial gateway of Hai Phong now takes just half a day.