There has been big buzz surrounding the establishment of the free-trade zone in Shanghai, which spans 28.78 square kilometres in the city’s Pudong New Area, including the Waigaoqiao duty-free zone, Yangshan deepwater port, and the international airport area. The zone is being trialled as part of an arsenal of initiatives to attract more foreign investment, and to incrementally liberalize the nation’s foreign exchange and interest rate system. As South China Morning Post reports, this activity all amounts to facilitating capital flow, which is fundamental to the objectives of establishing the RMB as a significant international currency and restructuring China’s economy away from export-led growth.
Beyond the dry-lunch economics, the most exciting announcement concerned the lifting of the firewall, enabling access to key social networks Twitter and Facebook. An anonymous government insider in a well–fitting sand dune-brown mac that strategically covers the face justified the move as part of making foreigners feel at home, which is just the most lovely sentiment:
“In order to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let foreigners live and work happily in the free-trade zone, we must think about how we can make them feel like at home.”
However it now transpires that this promise was a red herring; if the government ever was considering the move, they’ve now made a U-turn. Having said all this, China has just approved plans to lift a 13-year ban on the sale of video game consoles. Gaming and social networks are highly integrated communications ecosystems for youth markets across the globe, so this decision falls in line with what we’re hoping will be a relaxation of censorship controls in the region, starting with content, and then perhaps following with social networks…eventually.