The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 928 Nanyang Layout
Subsequently, in-depth discussions were conducted on future cooperation matters.

Liu Tao found that he had underestimated these wealthy Chinese businessmen.

These wealthy Chinese businessmen already own a large number of islands. These ten super-rich people own more than a thousand islands.

It’s just that in the past these islands were used to grow oil palms, grains, etc., and there weren’t many people, so the people on the islands were almost all their own workers.

With so many islands, it is very easy to train troops.

They will hire mercenaries and gradually build up an armed force.

At 9 o'clock the next morning, the opening ceremony of the China-ASEAN Joint Economic and Trade Committee meeting was held at the conference hall of the Grand Hotel.

Liu Tao came here not mainly for a meeting, but to meet his good friends.

The entire meeting lasted seven days and mainly discussed economic and trade cooperation.

China is the largest trading partner of almost all ASEAN countries. Except for the relatively small trade volume with Annan, the trade volume with other countries is large, and the growth rate is also very fast.

The two sides have very close economic and trade ties and share a great deal of common interests.

In this regard, both sides have a lot of consensus.

The first consensus is to maintain the stability of ASEAN and avoid war as much as possible. After all, war will inevitably undermine economic development, and construction is difficult while destruction is easy. Everyone has a unified consensus in this regard.

China has also always stressed the need for peaceful coexistence, win-win cooperation, and the need to shelve disputes and pursue joint development.

China's contribution to world peace is obvious to all and this is beyond doubt.

Everyone knows that China is an important force for world peace. The pursuit of peace is the characteristic of the Chinese nation. The Chinese nation does not like war. Since ancient times, the Chinese nation has been a peace-loving nation.

The second consensus is development. Everyone is pursuing development. The rapid economic development of China and ASEAN is obvious to all. The two sides support, promote and achieve each other.

As the fastest-growing economy in the world today, China has made remarkable achievements in the past decade of reform and opening up. Its economic strength has greatly increased, and its comprehensive national strength has also greatly increased. China needs a large amount of raw materials, food and fruits, which brings huge development opportunities to ASEAN countries.

When Europeans and Americans came to Southeast Asia, they brought war, colonization, invasion and plunder to the people of those countries. They never really considered building and developing Southeast Asia.

But China is different. China is willing to build Nanyang and develop hand in hand with Nanyang.

Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand are examples. China has built roads and railways, dredged waterways, and constructed reservoirs and hydropower stations in these four countries. It has also imported raw materials, grain, fruit and wood from these four countries, bringing them a large amount of income and enabling these countries to maintain rapid growth for more than a decade.

The cooperation between the two sides will not only consolidate the friendly and cooperative relations between the two sides, but will also further promote the economic development of China and ASEAN countries, expand the scale of bilateral trade and cooperation, and enhance the overall competitiveness of the region.

China and ASEAN countries have their own comparative advantages. The differences in natural resources, industrial structure and production capacity between the two sides have formed complementary trade characteristics both between industries and within industries. China and the vast majority of ASEAN countries have their own strengths in natural resources, forming a complementary structure of export commodities.

Natural resources are the main reason for the complementarity between industries. The relatively underdeveloped countries in ASEAN, such as Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia, tend to export natural resources, while China's natural resources are gradually decreasing. Some resources are not China's strengths due to geographical reasons, so they can be imported to ease resource pressure.

Hua Xia once again emphasized at the meeting that peace and development are the themes of the times, and everyone should work together to promote development, solve their internal problems through development, and become an important driving force for world peace.

Leaders and experts and scholars held meetings and forums, while Liu Tao met with old friends.

Many Chinese businessmen from ASEAN countries attended this conference. This kind of conference is a rare stage for them. Everyone can gather together to find opportunities for cooperation. Many Chinese businessmen hope to enter the mainland and speed up their pace of entering the mainland, because it is a huge market that no businessman can ignore.

Liu Tao met with friends one by one to discuss future cooperation.

The key point here is our old friends in the Philippines.

The Philippines is also a place with a large number of Chinese and overseas Chinese. There are about 500 million Chinese and overseas Chinese in the whole Philippines, accounting for about 7% of the total population of the Philippines.

This time, Liu Tao also persuaded these old friends to strengthen the construction of armed forces.

Like Indonesia, the Philippines also has a large number of islands, with a total of more than 7000 islands of various sizes. Among them, 11 major islands such as Luzon, Mindanao, and Samar account for 96% of the country’s total area. The coastline is about 18533 kilometers long and the total area is 29.97 square kilometers.

Unlike Indonesia, the Philippines is deeply influenced by the United States.

After the end of World War II in 1947, the United States and the Philippines signed the Military Bases Agreement, which stipulated that the Philippines would lease 23 military bases to the United States for a period of 99 years. In September 1966, the agreement was revised and the term was shortened to 9 years. The agreement expired in 25, and the following year, the United States withdrew all military personnel and facilities in the Philippines and handed over the bases to the Philippines.

Now the United States and the Philippines are seeking to sign an important military agreement, the Visiting Forces Agreement, and Liu Tao is undermining this agreement.

Liu Tao also hopes that Chinese and overseas Chinese in the Philippines have armed forces capable of self-defense, rather than pinning their hopes on the Philippine government's compliance with international law.

In this regard, Chinese and overseas Chinese have suffered too much loss.

Having a lot of wealth but no armed forces to protect it will eventually lead to constant robbery.

This is a vicious cycle, the kindness of Chinese people and overseas Chinese is always regarded as weakness and can be bullied.

Now is the time to break this vicious cycle.

As long as the jackals dare to attack, there will be earth-shaking changes.

Liu Tao is making plans in this regard in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Harmfulness is not allowed, and defensiveness is necessary!
It's always good to be more prepared.

Otherwise, if it really happens, things will be difficult to deal with.

After meeting Liu Tao, these Chinese businessmen couldn't help but feel a sense of crisis. After all, having a lot of wealth but not enough armed forces is just like a child making trouble with a golden bowl. It is impossible not to be targeted.

What's more, if you look up information about this kind of thing, you will find that it is everywhere in Southeast Asia, and they are all bloody examples.

How many wealthy Chinese businessmen have lost their wealth, or even died or their families have been wiped out, because of this kind of thing.

This must serve as a warning, and they cannot help but feel a sense of crisis.

With armed forces, when something happens, we will have the power to resist, or at least we can be protected and leave instead of becoming lambs to be slaughtered.

(End of this chapter)