FROM CHINA WITH LOVE – ALL STRINGS ATTACHED

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The Chinese government understands the beggar bowl mentality of many of our political leaders and they can therefore provide concessional loans with all types of strings attached. The recent outcry of Caribbean Contractors and citizens clearly show that they have now awaken from their slumber, to realise that Caribbean governments have been gullible enough to buy the programmes and projects of the Chinese, lock, stock and barrel.

There is clearly a misunderstanding of the role of the Chinese within our region. It is not done with the interest of Caribbean people at the forefront of these initiatives. China’s policy has always been expansionist in nature and the workers, which we now see on every street corner in our various countries are the first wave in a Chinese grand scheme of world commercial domination and ultimately world domination through its economic might, military strength and subservience of dominated peoples in developing countries. China is not interested in friends, but more so in domination. The world is becoming more and more dependent on cheap Chinese labour as World capital grabs for greater profit margins. No care or regard is shown for the Chinese labour force by either the Chinese government or the owners of capital. China wants to develop rapidly after decades of communist coercion and failed central planning strategies. What is the best method to gull the Western World but to adopt its market strategies and encourage investment along the Western World’s model.

The Chinese Tiger knows what it is doing. These countries in the Caribbean are ample fodder for Chinese exploitation. Chinese workers in constructing a project obtains most of its raw material from China, imports all of the workers, who then live on the construction sites in subhuman conditions, work for barely survivable wages, develop an enclave mentality and shun contact with citizens only venturing outside to sell vegetables grown around the construction sites.

The governments of the Caribbean give them an advantage over indigenous Caribbean Contractors. They do not pay taxes, national insurance nor are they unionized. Caribbean Contractors are obligated to provide various social safety nets for their workers. It is only reasoned that their costs will be higher. Caribbean People have been sidetracked in believing that because these Chinese workers work twelve (12) hour days that they are more productive than indigenous Caribbean workers. Caribbean Workers built the infrastructure in these countries and have long passed the stage of being callously exploited. Chinese workers are still treated as indentured labour in these Caribbean islands.

We the citizens of the Caribbean have a duty to defend ourselves against this servitude, which is engulfing our midst. Our history is one of the agony and pain of such abuse. We cannot for the sake of saving a dollar allow persons lives to be sacrifice in our midst. If this is allowed then we would have lost the struggle for human liberation and freedoms, which we have tried hard to built since 1838.

Caribbean people are not xenophobic but must speak out against the injustices, which are being perpetrated in our midst by the various state own construction companies of China.

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Filed under Caribbean, Chinese, Chinese Workers, Construction, Indentured Servants