China, Russia, South Korea and Japan will jointly open a sea to
land transport channel this year, announced an official from
Huichun City, located in northeast China's Jilin Province on Tuesday.
This eight-hundred-sea-miles conduit starts from Huichun, China
and terminates at Niigata, Japan. The route transverses Zarubino
Harbor in Russia and Sokcho in South Korea. It will cut shipping
time from five or six days to one or one and a half days. The
corridor provides a new access to the high seas from northeast
China in addition to the original passage via Bohai Sea and Yellow
Sea.
Once opened, container transport capacity will increase, with a
minimum of 12,000 vessels per year. This figure is expected to
double if operations proceed smoothly, according to reports from
Japanese media. Passenger liners will also sail on the route.
The Huichun municipal government and relevant parties from
Russia, South Korea and Japan signed the route agreement in 2006.
The four parties will share in investment, operation and management
of the route according to the agreement. China and Japan are
responsible for supplying goods. Russia is responsible for customs
clearance on its territory, storage, loading, unloading and the
transfer of goods. South Korea is responsible for the coordination
and management of all ships and carriers.
The route began trial shipping between Huichuan and Sokcho via
Zarubino Harbor in April 2000. The trials consist of two voyages a
week in winter and three in summer. To date more than 400,000
passenger-times, 500,000 containers, agricultural products and
non-staple foodstuffs have been transported along the route. The
foreign trade volume has exceeded US$2 billion.
Since last year, 15,000-ton-passenger-cargo vessels have been
sailing on the route. They can simultaneously carry 600 passengers
and 140 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) onboard.
To improve its international shipping capacity, China is working
together with Russia and North Korea toward integrating transport
channels and ports. The countries are enhancing cooperation
regarding cross-border inspections and joint-construction projects
that create highways to the sea.
Important Roles
A blueprint for the Northeast China Revitalization program,
initiated in 2003, was formally released on Monday. Including Inner Mongolia, the regional economy
rejuvenation area extends 1.45 million square kilometers. But most
of the accesses to the sea in this region are located in Liaoning Province. Not enough sea access
exists for local economic growth. Moreover, the booming
Sino-Russian trade ties need a port closer than those in Liaoning
to transport goods overseas.
For Northeast Asia, although regional countries would benefit
from each other economically, inconvenient transportation has
blocked any ongoing cooperative development, stated Shen Jiru, a
researcher with the Institute of World Economics and Politics under
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The United Nations
Development Program has sparked new cooperation and development in
the Tumen area. Due to increasing passengers and higher freight
flow an accessible channel on the Japan Sea rim has become a
priority.?
Huichun is viewed as a way to establish the new and necessary
access to sea. Once opened, this "golden route" will add fresh fuel
to the northeast China revitalization and economic development in
the Far East Region of Russia and Northeast Asia, observed
Shen.
Frustrating bottlenecks still exist. For example, a major
railway connecting China and Russia does not yet work smoothly. The
Russian stockholder, doing business as a private company, still
can't dispatch or receive trains without authorization from the
Russian state railway authorities. To date China and Russia have
not established loose and unified systems regarding customs
clearance and inspections in ports. These issues have caused the
four parties to postpone the route's opening date from early this
year to the year's end.
Integration of Northeast Asian Economy
In recent years, Northeast Asia has become one of the most vital
regions globally. Statistics from the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development show that the total volume of exports from
China, Russia, Japan, Mongolia, South and North Koreas accounts for
21 percent globally. Their imports account for 16 percent globally.
From 2000 to 2004, the regional trade volume almost doubled and
reached US$320.7 billion, or 40 percent of the internal Asian trade
volume.
At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a professor of
Seoul National University pointed out that the total GDP of China,
Japan and South Korea exceeded the EU in terms of purchasing
power.
According to a 2006 report released by Clarksons, a leading
shipping service group based in London, Hyundai Heavy Industries
from South Korea has topped the world shipbuilding list for four
consecutive years. All the top 10 shipbuilding yards are located in
Northeast Asia.
Economic ties between China and Japan also impress the world. In
2006, Sino-Japanese trade volume exceeded US$200 billion and
Japan's investment in China reached US$4.6 billion while China's
actual investment in Japan was US$170 million.
However, the Northeast Asia Economic Community is still in
discussion stages despite its mighty economic power. Historic
problems, energy security, resources competition and environment
problems among China, Japan and South Korea have all hindered the
integration process. Furthermore, a lack of regional free trade
agreements has slowed down the pace.
To accelerate the process, Wu Jianmin, president of China
Foreign Affairs University, proposes to establish a single currency
for East Asia. He would like to conduct research focusing on an
East Asia currency index.
A single regional currency following the pattern of the Euro
could shatter the privilege of the US dollar. Risks associated with
the dollars' fluctuation would be reduced, observed by He Fan, the
assistant director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics
under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The success of the
Euro has set a prime example for East Asian countries. They need to
compromise and establish a system of currency cooperation.
The swap amount under the Chiang Mai Initiative (a
network of swap agreements between countries of ASEAN and China,
Japan and South Korea) should be enlarged from the present US$79
billion to US$100 billion in 2008, stated Wu. Meanwhile, their
supervisory functions should be widened to cover floating capital
and policy macro controls in addition to current economic crisis
relief functions. A strategy of multilateralization and
systematization, if developed, would improve the scope of the East
Asia Reserve and Cooperation Fund after 2015, Wu added.
(China.org.cn by Li Shen August 23, 2007)
