Trade: Gateway to border security

• Source: Global Times
• [02:45 February 03 2010]
• Comments

For a country like China with a long boundary, maintaining border stability has never been an easy task.

Throughout its history, borders had been associated with sweet memories, such as the Silk Road. But more often, it brings a painful recollection of countless brutal wars with neighboring countries.

At the just concluded fourth National Conference on Borderline and Coastline Defense (the last such conference was held 16 years ago), the message sent is that China has concluded demarcation of borders with 12 neighboring countries, except for India and Bhutan.

Nine of China's provinces, involving over half of the total territory, share 22,000 kilometers of border with 14 countries. The border regions also have a concentration of the largest number of ethnic groups that are crucial to stability.

The borderline has blocked poverty, war and instability by keeping these outside the country, and without the borderline, the economic growth and tranquil life that we take for granted would have been impossible to attain.

Maintaining border security is never cheap. Since 1994, Chinese government has spent some 5 billion yuan ($732 million) on border patrol infrastructure, including building patrol roads, putting up barbed-wire fences, and supplying sophisticated equipment.

But long-term border security is better guaranteed through commerce and trade than fences and weapons.

Many border areas are underdeveloped compared with the more prosperous coastal regions. Enhanc-ing cross-border trade holds huge security and economic incentives for both China and neighboring countries.

By the end of 2009, China had opened 244 border gateways. Suifenghe in Northeast China, Kashgar in the Northwest and Dongxing in the Southwest are examples of boom towns, which are flourishing through frontier trade.

Frontier trade, though growing fast, accounts for a tiny share of China's gigantic inward and outbound commerce. In some gateway cities, frontier trade accounts for only 30 percent of the total trade volume.

Many gateways are hampered by poor infrastructure such as inconsistent power and water supplies, which cannot sustain a high level of frontier trade. Continued growth of border trade also requires consistent support of preferential policy.

China's borderline is also troubled with increasing smuggling of goods and humans, and drug trafficking. How to strengthen port security while facilitating border commerce is a challenge to the government.

Upgrading border trade calls for a broad strategy that transcends pure economic considerations.

An orderly, friendly and prosperous border city can serve as a better window to neighboring countries.