Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): CityUES Seminar on “The Rise of China, One Belt and One Road, the China Dream”

2015年9月7日星期一

CityUES Seminar on “The Rise of China, One Belt and One Road, the China Dream”

CityU Eminence Society (CityUES) arranged a seminar named “The Rise of China, One Belt and One Road, to Realize the Chinese Dream (1945 to 2015)” (「中國崛起，一帶一路，圓中國夢（１９４５－２０１５）」) in the Eminence Galaxy Alumni Function Room on 7th Sep 2015. CityU Eminence Society (CES) has established on 31 Dec 2010. Our mission is “To unite senior alumni to proactively contribute their resources, expertise and networks to help advance the University and serve the community”. Before the seminar, I took a photo with Dr. George So (Founding VP, Hong Kong Greater China SME Alliance Association) for memory.

Firstly, Dr. George So explained the meaning of this topic that China is come back to the World but not the rise. One Belt and One Road is our key national strategies. Dream is separated into personal, national, and the world. Then Dr. So asked what do you think about the economy? He added such as Deflation, Toxic Debt, Crashing Commodities, Crashing Chinese economy and Stock Market and Major Geo-political Problem that all are occurring simultaneously! After that Dr. So reviewed the big issued in the past 70 years (Beginning from the end of WWII in 1945 to the Xi’s era and China Dream in 2013).

Dr. George So briefed the Money and Internet War because of “Money makes the world go round! Internet connects people around the globe!” He believed USA flight for US dollar dominant (especially US Dollar for oil exchange). He also reviewed the recently issues happened in China since 2012. It guessed US government would like to create Geo-political Problem / Unstable to let money flow back to US.

The following slide showed different big issues should be paid attention including One Belt & One Road, AIIB, Internet+, Industry 4.0, Low Carbon era, etc.

Dr. So explained the spirits of One Belt and One Road through 5 paths.
i) Political Communication
ii) Facility Connection
iii) Free Trade Path
iv) Currency Exchange
v) Culture Exchange
In the past, USA and Russia had raised a similar plan such as “New Silk Road Initiative” from USA and “Eurasian Union” from Russia to fight for the dominant power in that area.

Another important issue was China-led bank – Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). In Europe, UK joined first on 12 March 2015 and then Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy and Austria. Top 10 countries in terms of capital contribution to AIIB is shown as following table.

Dr. So then discussed the important of reserve currency which is money held in significant quantities as a means of international payments and settlements. He added “any change to the world’s reserve currencies quickly reverberates around the world, putting literally hundreds of billions of dollars into motion, in a matter of minutes”. Finally, Dr. So said “Interesting September” based on the Mystery of the Shemitan (安息年的奧秘) that something would happen every 7 years.

Lastly, Dr. So quoted the book from Stephen Roach named “Unbalanced the Codependency of America and China” and shared four points below.
1. US saves little and China saving too much
2. China is planning to reboot its economic growth by moving from export led model to one of the internal consumerism, with a new focus of consumerism.
3. US has no strategy only using short term reactive approach over a more coherent Chinese style planning framework.
4. The way out: What America could do to turn its own Economic fate around and position itself for a healthy Economic and political relationship with China
He used a diagram to conclude what happen between China and USA.

Q&A Session
Dr. Augustine Chow (our first EngD (EM) graduate) shared his economic experience and he would restructure his investment portfolio after this seminar.