PORT MORESBY, Papua New
Guinea, and NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga - There is nothing
particularly unusual about the food at Ang's
Chinese restaurant. In fact, the roast duck served
there is excellent and the Lonely Planet guidebook
assures you that its hot-and-sour soups are
especially tasty. Rather, it's the eatery's
ambiance that is a tad
offsetting.
The yard is surrounded by high
walls topped with razor wire and surveillance
cameras. Two security guards watch the entrance
and open the sliding gate only if the callers
appear to be genuine dining customers. Those
allowed entry are met by another steel door
guarded by more watchmen, who not only shut but
lock the door behind the restaurant's guests. Only
then may they enjoy Ang's oriental fare in
relative peace.
Welcome to Port Moresby,
the capital of Papua New Guinea - and, according
to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the worst
place to live among 130 world capitals and major
cities. Major hotels advise their guests not to
venture out on foot - even in broad daylight in
the poshest downtown areas.
Unemployment
rates here hover anywhere between 70% and 90% and
crime has become a way of life for gangs of young
men born into a culture where tribal warfare,
vendettas and violence are deeply ingrained. Add
the easy access to firearms in urban areas, and
it's not surprising that most of Port Moresby's
homes resemble high security prisons and that the
50,000 Western expatriates who lived there when
independence was achieved from Australia in 1975
have since dwindled to a few thousand.
But, as the chatter in Ang's restaurant
indicates, newly-arrived mainland Chinese migrants
are fast filling the gap as the impoverished
country’s leading businessmen, contractors and
import-export dealers. Throughout history, Chinese
migrants have shown a willingness to endure harsh
living conditions to prosper economically in new
countries - and the Chinese in Port Moresby are no
exception.
Nowadays, Chinese migration to
areas like far flung Papua New Guinea is also
welcome in Beijing, which is seemingly eager to
establish a human presence along with its
expanding business influence in the resource-rich
region. In a local newspaper, former Papua New
Guinea defense minister Jerry Singirok recently
wrote that, "Australia has always considered Papua
New Guinea its backyard [but] ... since 2000,
Papua New Guinea has increased its bilateral
relations with China in areas of trade, investment
and the military ... China is here to stay."
According to Australian National
University (ANU) senior lecturer Benjamin Reilly,
China’s military assistance to the few Pacific
island states that maintain military forces -
Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga and Papua New Guinea - has so
far been modest, consisting mainly of training and
logistical support rather than weaponry, but has
increased sharply in recent years. Its business
investments, on the other hand, have been more
overt.
Following the money In
October 2006, Papua New Guinea's Governor-General,
Paulias Matane, met Chinese President Hu Jintao
and welcomed Chinese investment in the country’s
mining, forestry and fishing sectors. China had
already invested in the development of the US$1
billion Ramu nickel mine in remote Mandang
province, where working conditions are so harsh
that the country’s labor unions have threatened to
shut it down. With those investments has followed
a steady stream of Chinese migrants - many of whom
appear set to stay for the long term. According to
official estimates, there are currently about
10,000 Chinese citizens in Papua New Guinea -
though some believe that figure is considerably
higher. Many of them are here illegally, but Papua
New Guinean passports, and therefore citizenship,
are not difficult to obtain. In 2000, for
instance, a major passport scam involving
high-ranking Papua New Guinea officials from the
department of foreign affairs was uncovered -
which until it was closed down likely benefited
many Chinese migrants seeking permanent residence.
Meanwhile, growing Chinese financial aid
appears to have tempered any official concerns
about growing Chinese migration and has definitely
lessened the economic blow when traditional aid
donors such as Australia threaten to cut their
assistance because of official corruption,
nepotism and abuse of power.
"China's
rising status as an economic and military power is
becoming an important pillar for developing
countries like Papua New Guinea," Tarcy Eri, a
high-ranking foreign ministry official, said at
China's national day celebrations on October 1 in
2005. China's voice at the United Nations, he
said, was "one for the developing world".
Apart from the Russian Far East and
contiguous parts of Southeast Asia, the South
Pacific in general and Papua New Guinea in
particular is becoming one of three areas of the
world where Chinese influence is spreading so
rapidly that it may soon make not only an economic
but also a significant demographic difference.
The South Pacific is important to Beijing
for several strategic reasons. One is that Taiwan,
or, as it is officially called, the Republic of
China, has long endeavored to win diplomatic
recognition from the impoverished island nations
of the Pacific - and Beijing has driven hard to
deny the island it considers a renegade province
claims to international legitimacy.
Taiwan's efforts in the Pacific region
have always come with generous offers of aid,
something that many of the impoverished island
states desperately need. As a result, the Marshall
Islands, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati,
Nauru and Palau still recognize Taiwan, not China.
Beijing has more recently taken a page from
Taipei's check book diplomacy by providing funding
for new government buildings in Vanuatu and Samoa.
Beijing also helped pay for the
construction of the venue of the 2004 South
Pacific Games in Suva, Fiji. And China has
invested heavily in Papua New Guinea, which is
rich in natural resources but because of its
volatile law and order situation has been unable
to attract significant Western investments.
Chinese aid to Papua New Guinea - the largest
state in the Pacific - is now second only to
Australia's US$300 million per year.
But
there are bigger geostrategic stakes in the
Pacific. While the US is focused on conflicts in
Iraq and Afghanistan, China is making substantial
human inroads into a region that has long been
regarded as America’s sphere of influence. Some
analysts have even suggested that the Pacific
Ocean could in future become the venue for a new
Cold War, where the US and China compete for
client states and strategic advantage.
China is expanding its influence over the
Pacific with the "long-term aim of challenging the
United States as the prime power in the area",
says ANU's Reilly. "It can no longer be taken for
granted that Oceania will remain a relatively
benign 'American lake'." Tonga is a particular
case in point.
Tilting demographics For years, Tonga was Taiwan’s staunchest ally
among the Pacific’s various island states. But in
1998, Tonga suddenly shifted its recognition to
Beijing. Its then king - Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, who
died in September 2006 - received a red-carpet
welcome in Beijing along with promises of aid. Two
deputy chiefs of the People’s Liberation Army have
visited Tonga in recent years. Tonga may be tiny -
no more than 100,000 people live on its 700 square
kilometers - but it is strategically located in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Mohan
Malik, a China analyst at the Asia-Pacific Center
for Security Studies, said in an interview that
increased Chinese tourism and migration are also
part of Beijing's "economic and strategic
penetration of Oceania". In recent years,
thousands of Chinese have settled in the Pacific,
running grocery stores, restaurants and other
small businesses.
The numbers may not seem
significant in a global context, but both Reilly
and Malik argue that Chinese migration into these
lightly populated Pacific states has upset
traditional ethnic and economic patterns. For
example, in the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa there
was not a single Chinese-owned grocery store 20
years ago, according to locals. Now, more than 70%
of them are owned by newly-arrived Chinese
migrants.
Chinese dominance of the Tongan
economy was the main reason why violent riots
erupted in the Tongan capital in November last
year. Ostensibly demonstrating for democratic
reforms, the mobs looted and burned at least 30
Chinese-owned stores before Australian and New
Zealand peacekeepers arrived. The Tonga riots
followed widespread rioting in the Solomon
Islands, where angry mobs also attacked and
ransacked Chinese-owned stores, prompting Beijing
to send an airplane to evacuate more than 300 of
its nationals.
In Fiji, many ethnic
Indians, whose ancestors were shipped there over a
century ago by the colonial British to work on
sugar plantations, were recently forced to leave
as ultra-nationalist Fijian politicians assumed
power. But the departure of the Indians, most of
whom were businessmen and shopkeepers, created a
commercial vacuum that is being filled by Chinese
immigrants. A stroll along Victoria Parade, the
main thoroughfare in the capital, Suva, reveals as
many shop signs in Chinese as in English, and
considerably more than in Hindi.
Following
the May 2000 coup in Fiji, China volunteered to
fill the gap left by the suspension of Australian
and New Zealand military assistance. According to
Reilly, the realization of China's ambition to
develop a blue-water navy, or a maritime force
capable of operating across the deep waters of
open oceans, will only increase its interest in
the Pacific region. He points out that China has
noted how Japan and other influential countries
have historically used the Pacific islands in the
service of building a Pacific empire.
Recent Chinese ministerial visits in the
region have stressed "common interests" between
Chinese and Pacific defense forces and Reilly
believes that present military contacts with
Pacific island military forces could easily be
expanded in the future. Though there is no
evidence yet that China seeks to expand its
influence through military might, as more and more
Chinese migrants settle into the region and
contribute to changing the region's ethnic
demographics, the Pacific is steadily becoming a
Chinese sphere of influence.
PART
3: How-to guide for fleeing China
Bertil Lintner is a former
correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review
and is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media
Services. This series of articles is part of a
larger research project conducted with support
from the John D and Catherine T MacArthur
Foundation.
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