22-11-2011

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Just last October, I came back from the economic mission with Prince Philip in China – a sort of road show that put our country (and its business community) 10 days long in the limelight in China. As is the case for each and every entrepreneurial project, the added value of economic missions - with hundreds of business men and policy makers, travelling from city to city, scouting business opportunities - needs to be scrutinized in an objective fashion. The need for a proper analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of such an endeavor is a matter that was on my mind when starting off as a Foreign Affairs Minister, also in charge of Foreign Trade federal initiatives.

The easiest way to make the case for these missions is of course to point to the numerous contracts that have been concluded throughout the mission.  In China, no less than 48 agreements were signed.  Most of them were commercial contracts, but there were also agreements in the field of cultural and scientific cooperation.  I’m notably thinking of the agreement between the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and the Agreement between the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts. But to measure the impact of an economic mission, it is not enough to count the number of contracts that have been concluded.  The long term impact of these missions might be much harder to measure, but is definitely no less important. These missions provide a forum for hundreds of Belgian business men and women to show what they’re good at, to get in touch with Chinese counterparts, to promote goodwill for our country and to share our cultural creativity.  In short, they are an incredibly productive way to build bridges for the future.  Everlasting bridges? Not if they’re not maintained, but long lasting bridges nonetheless. 

These bridges will be used in both directions - from Belgium to China and the other way round.  They are a way to alleviate intercontinental information costs and other transactions costs.  For sure, there is ample room for cooperation between the Chinese and the Belgians, but we often need this type of missions to find the right man or woman, be it the CEO of a potential end consumer or interested joint venture partner or the dean of an academic institution. Good business is not about striking a deal, it is about creating a partnership. At least as important as the mission is what happens afterwards, what I would call the after-sales service.  This time for example, as a follow up to the mission, both the Secretary of Guangdong and the Mayor of Chongqing are planning to come to Belgium, to further capitalize on the contacts that were made during the mission.

To me, these economic missions are the culmination point of what I see as the five main strands of our bilateral diplomacy: political, economic, academic, development and cultural diplomacy. These are the five ingredients for a tasty cocktail we relentlessly promoted on our way in China, a cocktail called Belgium.

This metaphor brings me to the heart of how I see bilateral diplomacy.  Not as a sausage cut in neat slices separately packaged, but rather as a single undertaking.  It doesn’t make sense to do as if the promotion of our academic strongholds can be done in splendid isolation of the pursuit of our economic interests.  It is not foolish to assume that the beauty of our vibrant and diverse culture opens a door to better political understanding. These various strands of our diplomacy are built upon a single cornerstone: the enhancement of human understanding across cultures for the pursuit of our societal happiness.

So far for my foreign affairs philosophy, but how do we need to understand this high browse chitter in the light of the bread and butter reality of economic missions?   Well I came back from China with a couple of – allow me one of my favourite bits of diplolingo – “lessons learnt” in my suitcase. Let me share with you two of these lessons learnt. One thing is the tremendous and fast rising interest of our universities to take full part in these missions.  This academic interest reflects Belgium’s economic fabric: the strength of our economy rests on our capacity to innovate, and this requires our universities and our business to team up.   Universities deliver the engineers and the thinkers of tomorrow; universities need business and business need universities to commercialize inventions.  The Chinese have rightfully so come to realize this, and they’re keen on getting us into mutually beneficial academic partnerships, giving them the technological expertise and giving our universities increased international standing. In my conversations with political leaders, and with vice-president Xi Jinping in particular, our Chinese counterparts made it clear that they understand that this also requires better protection of intellectual property rights.

Lesson number two is about the joint purpose of our diplomacy.  You know that we’ve got on the one hand a federal diplomatic network and on the other hand regional trade agencies. Both of them do a good job, but there is more needed to sell our strengths. That bit more is a solid systemic cooperation between the regions and the federal government and their representatives abroad.  The problem in my mind is that the design of Belgium’s foreign policy contains some cooperative flaws. Our bilateral relations need to be streamlined in a harmonious fashion.  The different strands of bilateral relations pursued by various federal and regional Ministers need to be taken jointly, and cannot be dealt with in isolation of each other.  Oversight and coherence are the key elements for a well working foreign affairs policy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, these are some side remarks on our economic missions, and more generally on how I see foreign affairs.  In the increasingly interdependent world we live in, China and Belgium are growing to each other. I do believe that the mission last October was a decisive step on a long, promising way forward.

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