Head of strategy at the Port of Barcelona and general secretary of the Mediterranean Ports Association, Jordi Torrent (Reading, United Kingdom, 1971) has just published La globalització a la drift (Edicions 62), a work in which he highlights the essential role of transport maritime in the globalization process. At the Port after having worked for years in development cooperation and humanitarian aid in the Balkans and the Middle East, he is also general director of the B2B company Logistics Busan Barcelona.
You highlight in the book that the real boost to globalization is produced by the change in economic policy in China in 1978.
Leaving Eurocentrism, you realize that a moment that we experienced as decisive, the fall of the Eastern bloc, in fact is not. The determining event for what is considered the second phase of globalization was the change in Chinese economic policy in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping decided to end autarky and open the country to the world. Senior Chinese officials traveled around the world and decided to imitate the development of advanced countries, encourage foreign investment and make exports the engine of change. In this way, China quickly became the factory of the world.
He also believes that the West has a lot to learn from Asia.
Right now it is changing, but for many years we have looked at them with superiority, I remember the jokes when a Chinese businessman bought Espanyol. And it is obvious that we have a lot to learn from the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese, with all the cultural differences and life models that exist. There has been a lot of Western arrogance in looking towards the Far East in general.
Are you saying that is changing?
Clearly, especially in the wake of the Covid crisis, when the West has realized its fragilities. The thing is that many now perceive China as an enemy. From the United States and the European Union, China is spoken of as a systemic rival. It is understood by this industrial dependence that we have seen that we have, but I find it exaggerated. China’s history is zero imperialist, apart from its strictest area of ??influence, from Tibet to Taiwan. When it was a great maritime power, in the 15th century, it never had expansionist or imperialist desires, unlike Europeans, Americans, Turks, Arabs, Persians or Mongols.
You argue that globalization has been positive for the vast majority of the world’s population, but many sectors in Europe have been harmed. The agricultural protests are a good example.
Evidently. Here I like to remember the case of nuts and microchips as an example of the interrelationship of international trade. When Sweden and Finland entered the European Union in 1995, they lost the zero tariffs they had to favor Nokia and Ericsson, which bought electronic components, the predecessor of current chips, from the United States. As one of the basic rules of the WTO is that liberalization cannot be reversed, it was decided to compensate the US by liberalizing the entry into Europe of dried fruits, American walnuts. Then followed the Iranian pistachio, the Chinese pine nut… That put an end to many nut farms in Catalonia, especially in Tarragona.
Nokia against the Catalan farmers.
Exact. But later, at the Doha meeting, trade in electronic components was completely liberalized, so that nuts would not have had to be penalized… And now it is microchips, which are no longer produced in the US, but in Taiwan and Korea, which have made the entire European automotive industry dependent on Asia and the sector has had problems delivering cars because it did not have enough chips.
Everything has consequences.
Why was the Hyundai Tucson the best-selling car in Spain in 2022? Because the only ones who have their own microchips that do not come from Taiwan are the Koreans with Samsung. And they were the only ones who could ensure immediate deliveries.
He also points out in the book that we are moving towards a more fragmented globalization and that the center will shift to the Indian Ocean.
Because with tensions between the US and China, many companies are moving production further south, to Vietnam and India. China is still the main factory in the world by far, but it is already happening. On the other hand, despite all the problems they face and chronic poverty, the countries of the Gulf of Guinea – Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal – are growing a lot at a demographic level, even at an economic level. Nigeria is a country of more than 200 million inhabitants, it will soon be the third most populated on the planet. Exchanges will tend to grow between Southeast Asia, where production from China is moving, and Africa, and that will make the Indian Ocean the main ocean on the planet. The tensions between China and the US, on the other hand, play against the Pacific.
We buy everything in the Far East, but what do we sell? What do the containers on the ships traveling from Barcelona to China carry?
The main products that travel from Spain are low value, such as pork. But other more valuable products are growing, because the Asian middle classes value European products. Catalan cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies sell a lot, for example. And the European cars you see in big Asian cities are high-end, like Volkswagens and Porsches.
In the book he also talks about the Evergreen case as the moment in which Europe realized its vulnerability with maritime routes. And now the Red Sea crisis confirms it?
It has basically shown that our main trading partner is Asia. We tend to think of the US, which is the main partner in services, but in goods we have more relationship with Asia than with any other place in the world. It also demonstrates the economies of scale and how efficient maritime transport is, despite everything. Because the problems of the Red Sea have been solved by traveling around the Cape of Good Hope. There have been no shortage problems, nor have product prices increased. The journeys have been extended in some cases by fifteen days, in others by ten. And despite everything, everything still works relatively well. He shows that maritime transport, which accounts for 90% of trade, is one of the bases of globalization and that it has allowed the world we live in. And maritime transport prices continue to be below what they were before the pandemic, well below 2021-2022, when $20,000 was paid for a container.
Where are we going?
Now here in the West, in Spain, in Catalonia, there are voices that defend protectionism. It has happened at other times, but how have these trends towards protectionism ended? In fact, it was the main factor that led to World War II. If we take into account the level of reduction in poverty, infant mortality, and the increase in life expectancy, there is no doubt that globalization based on free trade has been positive for humanity as a whole.
