Port city's new berth

There is a whole lot more than panda diplomacy going on

One of Cathy Berx's favorite quotes is one she picked up in Shanghai a couple of years ago: "From provincial to universal." Berx, governor of the Belgian province of Antwerp, says the quote encapsulates her view on how to govern.

In that vein, Berx says she knows full well the importance of China in helping sustain Antwerp's competitiveness as measured against other European port cities, such as Hamburg, Rotterdam and London.

Since February, Berx, a law professor-turned politician, has attended a Mandarin class once a week, fascinated by the purity of classic poems, symbolic language and China's cultural richness. She likes pandas, too.

Antwerp would love to have one of those again, she says, explaining that in 1993, when the city was named a European capital of culture, China lent it a panda for six months, drawing visitors from across Europe.

Berx, 43, speaking in her Antwerp office, says efforts are being made for the city to get a panda again, even if she realizes how difficult that is.

"I really love big pandas. We know it is hard to have it back again because it is endangered. But we are ready to welcome it any time."

But beyond this distinctly soft panda diplomacy, Berx has other, firm ideas on bringing her province and China closer together. At the forefront of her thoughts are Antwerp's port and industry.

After entering into a sister-city relationship with Chongqing in Southwest China last year, a friendship network of Antwerp in China has taken shape, taking in the solid relationships with Shaanxi province, in the northwest, and Tianjin municipality, in the north, that Antwerp has enjoyed for many years.

In addition, Antwerp has long enjoyed solid ties with the Chinese ports of Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai.

"For Chongqing, we are focusing on trade and investment at the moment," says Berx, who has installed a resident representative in the huge Chinese city, which also covers a large rural area and has a population of 30 million, almost three times that of Belgium.

The decision by China's central government to designate Chongqing as an experimental region to harmonize urban and rural development helped draw Antwerp into its sister-city relationship with the port along the Yangtze River last October, Berx says.

Drawing the two even closer, the two cities now have a freight-train link over a distance of about 9,000 kilometers, which was inaugurated five months ago. Deliveries to either city by freight take 21 days, compared with the 25 days needed for a sea shipment to get to Antwerp from Shanghai.

The rail link could also help improve trade relations between China and Africa by connecting the port of Antwerp and the rail link, Berx says.

But the train-freight business is feeling the impact of the straitened times, and the volume of freight "is down a little bit", Berx says.

Antwerp is famous, of course, as a clearing house for diamonds, and plans are afoot for a processing center in Chongqing.

Berx says her city has invested a lot of energy and time in attracting Chinese investors, and they are always welcomed with open arms.

With its increasing economic clout, China has many high-performing and interesting companies that want to invest in Europe and Antwerp, she says.

"Of course, our province is keen to welcome these companies, which (would) enhance the economic network and create ... jobs."

Several months ago a group of private Chinese companies traveled to several European cities and reckoned Belgium was the most attractive destination for their investment. Although plans were formulated to build an investment hub of Chinese companies in Antwerp province, those plans are now on hold.

Berx, talking up the province to the hilt, produces her trump cards.First, she says, is its location at the heart of Europe, and then there is its highly productive port and excellent transport infrastructure and logistics.

With those assets, she says, many international oil and petrol refineries from Germany and the US moved to Antwerp after World War II, and business clusters formed. The province also attracted foreign distributors, manufacturers and service providers.

Acknowledging that the port business is flat, reflecting the continent's economic malaise, Berx says: "But new investments offer our companies new opportunities for further development."

Casting aside her provincial governor's cloak and donning her citizen-of-the-world cap, Berx speaks of how she sees the planet in 2012.

Frontiers are becoming more fluid, she says. People and powers should not be looking to benefit at the expense of one another but in dialogue with one another.

"Nowadays the world appears to be in a transition phase from 'West leads East' to 'West meets East'. It is time to go beyond Western settings to look into the empirical merits of the East."

No one can deny China's rich cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage, she says, nor its present economic performance.

"And who was not impressed by China's most recent achievements: the successful organization of complex events like the Olympics and World Expo?"

Sustainability is a challenge for China, especially during its rapid urbanization and industrialization, she says, and she suggests that at a local level people should be more involved in formulating and building sustainable cities.

"This takes time but we have to go step by step in building cities in a healthy way."

This is a "tough" message, she says, but one she wants to deliver at the two-day EU-China Mayors' Forum in Brussels that begins on Sept 19. The European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will be among the speakers.

Berx says that as a government official she has key coordinating responsibility when there is a disaster, and with China's urbanization one of her main worries is with skyscrapers.

"I am wondering when an explosion and fires happen in a 100-floor building in China, how do you evacuate people?"

Safe evacuation plans need to be formulated at the earliest design stages, she says. When she stayed in China once - she has visited the country six times since she took office in 2008 - locals in the host city considered her lucky because she was being put up in a high-rise hotel with superb views.

"But my thought was about how I could be evacuated if there was a disaster."

Social welfare, equality and inclusive growth are other important things for China to consider in urbanization, she says.

Berx says she has been a vegetarian since she was 8 and says one of the best things anyone can do for the planet is to eat less meat.

One thing she admires about China is how people respect and adhere to traditional ways of living, she says.

"This is what we Europeans should learn from China and Japan."

As China goes through a leadership change this year, Berx says, its people will nurse high hopes that those who take charge will perform well and make China even stronger. There will be people who have doubts, fears and even anger, she says.

"I hope the new leadership can help overcome and give back hope and ambition for those who have fears."

Contact the writer at fujing@chinadaily.com.cn.