Papua New Guinea: Chinese empire expands at great cost to forest and its people

Chinese engineers landed in Papua New Guinea in 2006 to inspect their
latest mineral acquisition, they faced an arduous journey through the
tropical wilderness. They drove over crumbling roads to the Ramu
River, then found natives with dugout canoes to paddle them upstream.
Next, they hired another team of locals with machetes to slash a rough
trail for eight hours through the steamy jungle, dodging poisonous
snakes and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. “It was terrible,” recalls
Wang Chun, the chief engineer. “You couldn’t breathe.” Today, less
than three years later, a series of small Chinatowns has emerged in
the jungle — complete with Chinese food, Chinese satellite television
channels and crews of Chinese migrant labourers living in cheap
dormitory huts. Where once was wilderness, you find the workers of
China Metallurgical Group Corp., toiling seven days a week and
chattering about their families back home in Beijing and Sichuan. It
hasn’t been easy.

The state-owned mining company has dealt with
violent clashes with local landowners, striking workers, attacks from
the media and unfriendly police who arrested more than 200 Chinese
technicians on charges of illegally entering the country. But today it
is transforming the economy of Papua New Guinea. Its $1.4-billion
nickel and cobalt mine (all figures U.S.), the biggest construction
project in the country, will employ 4,000 people at its peak, adding
at least 10 per cent to the national economy every year. Already, its
workers have built the country’s longest bridge, eliminating the need
for those canoes. They have built the country’s biggest wharf. They
have carved out a 25-kilometre access road in the mountains. And now
they are working on a 135-kilometre pipeline to the company’s new
refinery on the coast. This remote Pacific country is the latest
outpost in the New Chinese Empire — a far-flung network of trade and
investment that also generates political
power.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081231.wyorkchina0103/BNStory/International/home

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