> Only Australia is a southern hemisphere nation of any major economic value to HK.
Mate, I mean you no disrespect, but you need to look at the globe.
You forget entirely about the African continent, most of which is in the Southern Hemisphere. Plenty of untapped wealth there: more money than even Croesus would want or need. Just ask de Beers. Or check out Nigeria. Oil, oil and more oil.
Or South America, for that matter. They are swimming in marketing potential. An entire continent flush with natural resource waiting to be exploited. As damaging as its current economic developments have been, South America has yet to plunder its potential.
Indonesia is no joke, either: plenty of wealth there. And a huge marketplace.
Understand also that the Southern Hemisphere trades together in ways that the Northern Hemisphere would scarce suspect. The only thing separating us is oceans. And the Chinese are here, thick as thieves, boots and all.
No offense taken.
While, I did forget about Indonesia (hey, it straddles the equator), I did say "of any major economic value to HK". I do not have the numbers at my fingertips, but I would doubt that the HK to Nigeria trade is in the range of an order of magnitude of HK trade to Japan or US or the Euros.
I did not say the southern hemisphere was of no economic value, I simply referred to major (I could have used signficant, but perhaps preponderance would have been better) economic value to HK. Certainly, we couldn't get by without oil, or diamonds (for industrial purposes) or chromium, etc.
I have heard of Chinese efforts to economically and politically benefit from relationships with African nations and we should be wary. It would be a shame to have worked for so long to limit Fidel's influence to see another Marxist jump into the breach.
Best,
Opocno