1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3645

Although Dong Shangyi also knew that the two regions of Luzon Star Island were competing to develop the new southern continent, the level of information he had was not high, and he was not aware that the two regions had already started a fierce competition for this, both openly and secretly, and regarded each other as rivals.

Both sides invested huge resources and manpower in the New World in the south in order to get ahead of the other side and occupy as many local areas with abundant water and grass and rich mineral resources as possible.

Under such circumstances, Xingdao would naturally not consider the possibility of forming a political alliance with Luzon. Even an alliance through Fujian, a third party, was unacceptable to Roger.

Before Dong Shangyi could persuade him, Roger asked, "Master Dong, if you had come to Sing Tao Island first, I wouldn't mind agreeing to your request. But when you get to Manila, and Qiu Yuan and Xiao Liang are in my current situation, do you think they will agree to a political alliance with Fujian?"

Dong Shangyi was speechless for a moment. He had to admit that what Roger said did make some sense. If there was such a big rift in the relationship between Sing Tao and Luzon, then Luzon probably would not agree to form such a political alliance.

Dong Shangyi recalled the situation before he left Manila. Sure enough, the Luzon authorities knew that he would visit Sing Tao Island next, but they did not mention whether Sing Tao Island would be included in the political alliance, and their attitude was very ambiguous.

At that time, Dong Shangyi was still excited about successfully handling Luzon and did not pay attention to such details at all. Looking back now, he realized his negligence.

Of course, if we want to find out who is responsible, it all comes down to Xu Yuzhuo's misjudgment. He believes that Fujian can play a role in getting together Luzon and Sing Tao Island, and have the three parties sign a political alliance. This will allow them to gather the political influence of the three regions and have more say in Hai Han's domestic politics in the future.

However, Xu Yuzhuo did not expect that due to the New World in the South, the relationship between Luzon and Sing Tao Island had undergone tremendous changes, and it was unlikely that the conflict of interests could be resolved in the short term.

The only thing to be thankful for is that although the plan formulated by Fujian cannot be fully realized, it has at least achieved half of its goals and successfully brought Luzon into the partnership, so it can be said that the work was not in vain.

But the current situation still makes Dong Shangyi somewhat embarrassed. If Sing Tao is unwilling to join the political alliance led by Fujian, some of the political propositions put forward by Fujian in the future may be opposed by Sing Tao because of Luzon's stance.

As if he saw Dong Shangyi's embarrassment, Roger immediately said that Sing Tao would deal with domestic political affairs with its usual attitude. The first is national interests, and the second is the interests of the Sing Tao region. As long as there is no conflict between the two, Sing Tao will not take the initiative to become an enemy of any party.

Dong Shangyi hurriedly thanked Roger for his understanding, but secretly felt that in addition to expressing his attitude, Roger's words actually also had some warning implications - if the political views proposed by Fujian and Luzon in the future conflicted with the interests of Sing Tao, then don't blame him for not giving face.

Although the political cooperation failed to be concluded, other cooperation projects have achieved results beyond expectations, which is enough for Dong Shangyi to report back.

In the following days, Dong Shangyi, accompanied by local officials, visited the construction achievements of Xingdao. As rumored, the ethnicity of Xingdao residents is even more complex than that of Luzon. In addition to the Han people and Southeast Asian aborigines, there are more ethnic groups from the Indian Peninsula, the Middle East, East Africa, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, and Southern Europe.

These ethnic groups have different languages, cultures and living habits, but they can live together on Singapore Island and get along harmoniously, which shows that the authorities' governance level is quite good.

There are many areas among which Dong Shangyi had only heard of the names in the past, but had never seen the people from these places. It was only after he came to Sing Tao that he slowly matched them one by one and gained a lot of knowledge.

Dong Shangyi soon realized that the reason why there were so many more ethnic groups in Xingdao than in China was because of its geographical location, which happened to be stuck on the key waterway connecting the East and the West. With the help of developed maritime shipping, people from all over the world gathered here.

But then again, among all the ethnic groups, the Han people still have the highest overall quality. Especially the younger generation who grew up under the dual banner of Hai Han, whose education level is far ahead of other countries of the time, and far beyond those ethnic groups who can't even read and write Chinese characters well, so most of the important positions are in the hands of the Han people.

In addition, there are diplomatic and trade agencies stationed in Xingdao by many neighboring countries. For this reason, an area has even been specially designated on the island for other countries to build agencies.

Dong Shangyi had only seen this kind of planning method in Hangzhou and Sanya before. He did not expect that Xingdao had the same planning as the old and new capital cities. This shows how many foreigners come and go here.

This kind of scene also made Dong Shangyi feel envious. If Fujian could maintain trade relations with so many countries, the wealth that would be created would be incalculable.

Of course, Sing Tao Shipyard was one of the places Dong Shangyi had to visit on this trip. He noticed that the number of docks and slipways here was far more than that of the Manila Shipyard, and its production capacity would naturally surpass that of its counterparts in Luzon.

This is comparable to the level of development of the local shipping industry in Sing Tao. According to the accompanying officials, there are more than 20 shipping companies of all sizes registered and operated by local capital in Sing Tao. And the number of shipping companies from outside the region and even abroad is no less than this.

Dong Shangyi was also astonished when he heard this. When it comes to the intensity of competition in the shipping industry, the situation on Xingdao is probably second to none in Hai Han.

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With so many shipping companies competing for business, they can only achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement by continuously expanding their business scale, thus gaining an advantage in the competition. The production capacity of Xingdao Shipyard is obviously unable to meet the growing needs of so many customers, which is why Xingdao Shipyard, although its shipbuilding capacity is not bad, still needs Fujian to provide more cargo ships and production capacity.

Dong Shangyi was originally very optimistic about the prospect of Fujian Shipping Company entering Sing Tao Island to operate in the future, believing that a fleet of hundreds of cargo ships would be enough to defeat most of the competitors in the region, but the actual situation did not seem as optimistic as he had imagined.

Although there are indeed not many shipping companies with hundreds of ships here, Fujian Shipping Company is definitely not the only one. If Fujian Shipping Company wants to gain a foothold in this fiercely competitive market in the future, it is probably far from enough to rely solely on the advantage of having a large number of ships.