Rear Window | One Belt, One Road fascination

Severo Portela

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road – together The Initiative – attracted to Beijing nearly 70 countries and international organizations unable to ignore Xi Jinping’s project of the century. In spite of conspicuous absences, such as India, or the under representation of the USA led by an NSC officer, the spin talks of a budget of five (5) trillion for infrastructure crossing more than 60 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Perhaps the strongest point of the One Belt, One Road is not the budget, but the value added by the narrative of China as the light beam of globalization against protectionist policies. Add to this its simplicity as well as vagueness that allows or paves the way to include anything at any time. The Initiative should be translated as China’s ambitious economic and diplomatic plan to exchange hegemony for harmony…whatever we take harmony to be.*

One Belt, One Road is definitely an opportunity for 60% of the world’s population, but for China it is a national challenge. Even the small sized MSAR will be called to take part and contribute to the initiative, but there should be a general warning against excessive largesse to avoid the presentation of inadequate projects and unacceptable ideas.

Among the messages, Chairman of the National People’s Congress crafted to Macau was an indirect yellow card – in reference to the contradiction(s) brilliantly reviewed by fellow columnist Eric Sautedé – to local political and administrative apparatus: new talent is needed!

New talent has to bring new ideas. Fresh talent is already making a go in every sector of activity, but new ideas need time to sprout. Unfortunately, Zhang Dejiang seemed to put aside sources of new talent for the conservative camp, thus probably involuntarily limiting the pluralism and segmentation to conservative uber moderates, conservative moderates, conservative average, conservative medium and the conservative ordinary. So we ask what do liberals or democrats do, other than lay in a limbo of alienation, not in Marx (1844) definition, but exclusion tout court?

In the meanwhile, Macau has to proceed with the things it does better or exclusively, meaning the so-called industry of casinos has to go on with the so-called diversification of the IR concept and at the same time keep tabs on things going on inside and outside the gambling archipelago. At home, the industry faces the challenge of the renewal of the six licenses in an environment of eventual expedient legal challenges to the sub-concessionaires, credit distress (junket operators – individuals or subsidiary companies – provide credit to high-rollers to circumvent currency controls in the Mainland) and crime and misdemeanors.

Outside, the number one gaming player in the world faces the reconfiguration of the gambling archipelago in Asia, with Japan, the Philippines, and now even upon the Roof of the World in idyllic Nepal, 330 km to the North of Lucknow/Uttar Pradesh, and mostly a change in the mood related to money laundering.

*In contemplating the future, it is always important to remember that, despite all its rigidities and infirmities, the Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly surprised the world with its ability to change course and prevail, including its most recent feat of steering China into the twenty-first century as a nascent super-power. “Wealth and Power” by Orville Schell and J. Delury.