Countdown to Xi Jinping’s PH visit
THE China International Import Expo (CIIE) ends today in Shanghai. It might as well be the start of the countdown to the visit of President Xi Jinping to the Philippines on November 25.
On the CIIE, I believe I first had an idea of what it is during my visit to Shanghai in 2016. I was designated to head a select media group invited to the city as guests of Ximin Evening News, a leading Shanghai newspaper. Part of the prepared itinerary was the exposition of world-class liquor brands at the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. You name it, they had it, whether vintage or new, wines and liquor that are inescapable delights for any delicate connoisseur. Why were they there? Because they all had to pass through there before being distributed to all corners of the world. In other words, those wines and liquors cannot reach world markets except through China — an inevitable paraphrase of the guy who said, “Nobody goes to the Father but by me.”
I gaped then at a dawning. As far as world-class wines and liquors are concerned, either you deal with China or you thirst.
Philippine participation
With today’s concluding CIIE, not only wines and liquor but a wide array of manufactures and services from all over the world are up for grabs. From the Philippines — which is represented by 36 exhibitors organized by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) together with partner agencies Department of Tourism (DoT), Department of Science and Technology (DoST) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) — were offered, on the one hand, fresh fruits, vegetables, coconut products, and herbal infusions, and on the other, a rich pool of service providers, technical manpower and competent professionals like teachers and nurses raring to avail of economic potentials beyond their Philippine horizons.
Trump calls Xi
An editorial writer who’s been keeping track of developments in the world economy gloated the other day that all it took for investors to regain confidence in the market was a simple telephone call from US President Trump to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump did it during the period of the CIIE. Has he sensed that the import expo theme is turning out to be China’s effective counterpoint to his trade war? It has drawn to China’s side those affected by Trump’s high increase of tariff on US imports. After the call, sales of stocks perked up the world over. This indicated popular acceptance of China’s ascendancy as world economic leader, and of this ascendancy Xi now stands as the paramount personification.
What’s so important about this guy Xi that a call to him seems the one single impetus for the world economy to rebound?
Well, Filipinos had better start learning if they haven’t done so yet. President Xi is visiting the Philippines on November 25. And today, as the CIIE ends in Shanghai, must be an apt start of the countdown to the Chinese president’s Philippine sojourn.
In diplomatic parlance, the Xi visit is touted to cement a large number of deals reached during President Duterte’s visit to China in 2016 and Premier Li Kequiang’s visit to Malacañang in conjunction with the latter’s attendance in last year’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Bicol Express and rice granary
Particularly slated for sealing by the two presidents is the deal for the construction of the Manila-to-Matnog railway and the development of a new rice hybrid which, being state-owned unlike the IRRI brand which is a product of a private undertaking and thus is rather too costly for comfort, will be made easily accessible to rice farmers. This seems to promise already a solution to the country’s perennial rice insufficiency. This push toward ultimate rice sufficiency was earlier complemented by the inauguration several months ago by Chinese ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua, of the Chico River irrigation system, in the heart of the Philippines’ rice granary. Cagayan Valley.
‘Debt trap’
On the minus side, President Xi might just find his hands full having to explain the “debt trap” accusations parroted by Amboys in the media in order to malign Chinese assistance and generosity. To offset the negative effect of these accusations may require a clear delineation of the positive impact of Chinese assistance in the immediate, perceivable sense. Is it enough that he cites the economic gains already attained by the Philippines from China? The Philippines is now the top banana supplier in the Chinese market, for instance, or Chinese tourist arrivals in the Philippines have by now dislodged Korea from the number one slot.
But though taxi drivers or banana and vegetable planters and livestock growers and workers may be dependent on the large influx of Chinese tourists, and have already benefited from Chinese aid, they comprise just a minuscule part of the great mass of the 100 million Filipinos today groaning from the high cost of rice and galunggong. The economic benefits gained by this minority from Chinese assistance may not be reckoned as redounding as well to the multitude of hungry Filipinos.
Cry of Filipino stomachs
Admit it or not, President Xi’s visit will be weighed by the Filipino people not on the initial gains estimated from the above-cited earlier implementation of done deals but on the scale of the immediate satisfaction their hungry stomachs can enjoy.
To cite an example, the mega railway project to Bicol will not be operational until 2022. So, I, a Bicolano, will have to be alive till then in order to savor its benefits, but how am I gonna be alive even just up to tomorrow if I ain’t got food to eat today? But if President Xi supplies me just with rice up until year 4 from today, I can live that long to be able to enjoy the reinvented Bicol Express.
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