Tales of the Three Countries

 Some thoughts on the Boao Forum 2023              Historically, China has the millennia-old tradition of turning their purchasing power into political influence. Almost always in the history, China has been the biggest polity in terms of population and they have evinced the ingenuity in utilizing their purchasing power as leverage to obtain the political control over its neighbors and trade partners from the olden time. Before the modern era, the government monopolized the international trade or exercise direct control over the cross-border trade so that they could maintain the tribute relationship with other countries. In other words, tribute system had been sustained because the free trade by private sector was punishable crime. In a sense, Boao Forum is the resuscitation of the olden tribute system in that CCP takes advantage of their full control over its purchasing power and that the participation is actually a forced option for the particip...