Chinese Dragon Could Get Burnt

John Garnaut reports for Stuff.co.nz on how China’s overseas investments are playing out on the ground in Africa and other regions:

The map of China’s overseas resource investments is not a pretty picture. In the developed world, Chinese investors are tangling with unfamiliar regulations, labour markets and technologies.

In unstable nations, particularly in Africa, they are aligning themselves with transient regimes. In South America and the Pacific Islands, which have pugnacious traditions of local community rights, they are finding that doing cozy deals at the state level does not solve grassroots problems.

So they are encountering huge cost overruns and delays in Australia; a rolling tangle of violent landowner disputes and now court injunctions in Papua New Guinea; ugly labour and environmental disputes in Peru; a violent backlash against Chinese workers in Angola and a fraught alliance with a brutal dictator in Sudan.

Chinese corporate leaders are not accustomed to paying for impartial advice, preferring instead to pay commissions to middle men who can lead them to overpay for the wrong assets. Some are exposing themselves to corruption investigators abroad and also at home for huge kickbacks paid and received.

It is only a matter of time before such antics are exposed in Australia. And in Africa, unlike China, they don’t often get what they pay for.

CDT EBOOKS

Subscribe to CDT

SUPPORT CDT

Browsers Unbounded by Lantern

Now, you can combat internet censorship in a new way: by toggling the switch below while browsing China Digital Times, you can provide a secure "bridge" for people who want to freely access information. This open-source project is powered by Lantern, know more about this project.

Google Ads 1

Giving Assistant

Google Ads 2

Anti-censorship Tools

Life Without Walls

Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention

Open popup
X

Welcome back!

CDT is a non-profit media site, and we need your support. Your contribution will help us provide more translations, breaking news, and other content you love.