Sri Lanka: A country trapped in debt

[Tibarn]

18 hours ago, sandeep said:

Wait until the Chinese companies start ramping up the agriculture section of the great CPEC - while the connected ones will make their chavvanni commissions, the average Pakistani farmer is going to start hurting.   

I wonder if China is going to start migrating Chinese into Pakistan...

 

This article mentions how the Chinese starting migrating into Laos and taking all the jobs that Laotian people were supposed to get with Chinese investment

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/757862.shtml

 

Quote

Across Laos, Chinese laborers are building huge malls, dams, factories, golf courses and airports, taking jobs that could easily done by Laotians. Tiny Laos with its population of over 6 million is being made to look increasingly like China. Many Chinese projects dispossess Laotians of their land. The Laotians need the work.

There is no question that the Chinese have always been in Laos, but it is the massive increase in numbers, influence and visibility that are causing concern.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times drew approbation over a story they did on what was to be the joint China-Laos railway project. Hidden in the story is the threat that Laotians are increasingly naming; colonization by stealth, and with that, a commodification of Lao culture. 

In the story, the Chinese hotel owner was waiting for the floods of his countrymen into Laos to complete the circle of purchase and profit. The Laotians are increasingly left with nowhere to go.

Hidden below the grandiose plans are the subtle corrosion of what it means to be Laotian. China, which guards its own heritage and ancestry, is seemingly happy to destroy that belonging to others. 

The traditional Lao skirts are being replaced by cheap mass-produced synthetic skirts made by machines in China, marginalizing both the weavers - whose work makes significant contributions to village incomes - and the fabric's cultural meaning.  

Some of Vientiane's best loved colonial buildings are slated for demolition. The National Museum is, perhaps ironically, to be replaced by a 20-story five-star hotel. 

Chinese projects are operated under a Godfather model. There is no competitive bidding or tendering process.  Instead, concessions are given by political insiders for various favors.

The Yunnan-derived Northern Plan perhaps best sums up the insensitivity to non-Chinese culture. The famously successful but intimate World Heritage city of Luang Prabang has become a tourist megalopolis of 30 square kilometers; ethnic minorities can be shown off in what could be described as human zoos, to be gawped at and photographed by Chinese tourists. 

But more ominously, it reveals how easily and cheaply Laos can be bought. Laos has been described as a vassal state, and the Northern Plan makes it obvious that this descriptor is apt.

Recently, the Global Times published two opinion pieces, which talked about the Chinese presence in Laos. Their pieces presented the middle class critique. They talked about roads, infrastructure; all the stuff of the urban elite. 

Laotians are still largely poor and rural. They do not have access to health services, or decent education, much less Range Rovers for comfortable cross border travel. 

Chinese road projects provide lessons in how not to proceed. A recent trip up the Nam Ou River showed how appallingly managed some Chinese infrastructure is. 

The road built to maintain the cascade of Chinese hydropower dams had already caused massive landslips and loss of river bank farmlands. When I asked the boatmen who ply the river and upon whose skills thousands of people, including a burgeoning tourist industry, depend, if they had been consulted or compensated, they all said no. A small group of highly skilled men will become occupationally extinct. 

The signs of urban economic growth have given the government of Laos legitimacy, while the Chinese have gradually inched out the traditional protectors, the Vietnamese. 

The recent abduction of Laos' national Sombath Somphone underscored that the transfer of telecommunications from Thai to Chinese oversight has had consequences for Laotian civil society. Phones and the Internet are under surveillance.

But more seriously, Chinese incursions into Laos' economics, commerce planning, and resource management are now so pervasive and entrenched, that they can never be reversed, even if a more dignified government comes into power.

 

[Tibarn]

Our east Padosis are also worried  

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/chinese-loans-may-put-bangladesh-in-debt-trap/articleshow/59185012.cms

Funniest part is the 2nd paragraph

...

 

 

[sandeep]

53 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

I wonder if China is going to start migrating Chinese into Pakistan...

 

This article mentions how the Chinese starting migrating into Laos and taking all the jobs that Laotian people were supposed to get with Chinese investment

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/757862.shtml

 

 

Not permanently - but Chinese infra projects always import their labor - skilled and semi-skilled.  Its basically economic strip-mining, if you are familiar with the concept.    When you make a deal with the devil, he's sure to get his due.   In some circumstances its fine, as long you have proper watchdog processes built in.  But in our green-bro "pure" land, those watchdogs are easily 'rented' to look the other way.  Then you end up with Colonize Pakistan to Enrich China in all its glory.  The details and aftermath won't be publicly visible until its too late anyway.  

 

At least with nativist corruption its the local fat cats who get rich, they would at least spend their ill-gotten gains locally - build bungalows, etc.  That's not going to be the case with CPEC.  But as long as the project is done with staunch 'anti-India' credentials, it doesn't matter.   PakMil is so determined and steadfast to not allow Pakistan to be a South Asian state that is under Indian sway, that it will willingly sign over everything to their Chinese overlords.

[jusarrived]

13 hours ago, velu said:

i meant these unnecessary infrastructure projects like ghost airports and ghost ports ..

these things lead to the downfall of greece and to some extent spain

I actually agreed with you ;)

 

its a pretty small mid-income country with a population less than some of our cities . 

There is no rush for them to build these highways/skyscrapers/airports etc . its going to be a debt trap for Lankans . 

[sandeep]

14 hours ago, jusarrived said:

its going to be a debt trap for Lankans .

Going? Already is.  Their debt servicing burden is taking serious chunks out of their budget.  At a time when they need to rebuild their war-torn NorthEast.