Keeping an eye on Communist, Totalitarian China, and its influence both globally, and we as Canadians. I have come to the opinion that we are rarely privy to truth regarding the real goal, the agenda of China, it's ambitions for Canada [including special focus on the UK, US & Australia]. No more can we trust the legacy media as there appears to be increasing censorship applied to the topic of communist China. I ask why. Here is what I find.
PM Hun Sen says China is his 'most trusted friend' but critics say the premier's one-party state is allowing Beijing to 'colonize' the country for short-term gains
SIHANOUKVILLE, AUGUST 5, 2018
Sihanoukville, once Cambodia’s premier seaside resort, has been transformed into a bustling Chinese casino town.
The first thing a visitor inevitably notices is the bright red and yellow Chinese lettering on virtually every sign. It’s impossible to walk down any town street without passing a Chinese-built casino or Chinese-owned business. Even the advertisements plastered on the backs of ubiquitous tuk-tuks are written in Mandarin. “Now Chinese all,” said one Cambodian man standing outside a beachfront restaurant wearing traditional Chinese clothing to lure in Chinese tourists.
Sihanoukville is a glaringly visible example of China’s rising domination of Cambodia’s economy. It also serves as a cautionary tale of the downside risk of overreliance on Beijing for the small country’s future development and prosperity.
Chinese largesse has enabled, if not encouraged, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s recent lurch from multi-party democracy to a de facto one-party state, a transition to full-blown authoritarianism consolidated at rigged elections on July 29.
Chinese investment has supplanted the Western aid that previously bankrolled Cambodia’s national budget, funds that often came with strings attached for democracy and rights promotion. Beijing’s rich disbursals have come with no such demands.
Nowadays, the premier often refers to China as Cambodia’s “most trustworthy friend” and asserts that the regional superpower is necessary for Cambodia’s sustained development.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) walks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh on October 13, 2016. Photo: AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy
But critics claim that in ceding territory and other long-term economic concessions to China, Hun Sen’s government is effectively enabling China’s de facto “colonization” of his country as it yields more and more to Beijing’s ambitions and demands.
Nowhere is China’s rising economic domination more apparent than in Sihanoukville, which increasingly looks, feels and acts like a Chinese city. The transformation is being driven by a fast surge in Chinese tourism, which grew 126% from 2016 to 2017.
The influx is not coincidental, as Hun Sen himself has urged China to invest in the once somnolent coastal town. Yet some critics say China is effectively exporting its vices to Cambodia by establishing casinos in the kingdom while it’s still illegal to gamble in China.
colonialization
The risk of dependence on the notoriously fickle and highly opaque gaming industry is rising in Cambodia. Many of Sihanoukville’s giant, China-invested mega-casinos are typically vacant, according to gamblers who spoke with Asia Times.
That’s the business model, however, as Cambodian and Chinese women deal cards to empty tables in front of cameras for online gamblers based in China who no longer need to travel abroad to place their bets.
Sihanoukville’s Chinese-owned WM Casino is a case in point. On a recent evening at the resort, half a dozen gamblers gathered around three tables while the remaining 15 or so were occupied by women dealing cards to phantom players.
A Chinese casino lit up by night in Cambodia’s Sihanoukville. Photo: Facebook
Chinese-led casino development has drastically shifted Sihanoukville’s economics, seen in skyrocketing property prices. Where a local house in the town until recently rented for US$250 a month, landlords are now demanding upwards of US$3,000, according to people familiar with the situation.
While Western entrepreneurs are feeling the financial pinch of rising rents, Cambodians that don’t own the land they occupy are being driven in droves from the town.
English business owner Thomas Powell and his Cambodian wife are currently embroiled in a legal dispute with his landlord after he allegedly illegally attempted to evict him to make room for Chinese investors.
“The reality is that there is a blatant disregard for contracts,” he said. Many landlords are refusing to renew leases, knowing that they can get a bigger payday from a Chinese renter. There are reports that even those with airtight contracts are being forced out.
“It’s not just foreigners getting screwed over, it’s Khmers as well. And Khmers with families,” he said. “Many people don’t have the wherewithal to fight it.”
Powell said not all Cambodians are losing out – some landowning Cambodians are winning big – but the losers far outnumber the winners, he claims. And there could be bigger losses on the horizon, some analysts predict.
Anwita Basu, an analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, says Sihanoukville’s China-led development may help promote growth through construction and tourism in the short-term, but warns of possible problems in the future, including political risks.
“[Rising Chinese investment] will price out the locals from the property market and therefore may raise resentment against the Chinese,” she said, adding that many of the investments seem susceptible to corruption.
A Chinese lion dance in Sihanoukville in 2017. Photo: Youtube
Chinese investors have even bigger plans in the works for Sihanoukville. Enormous plots of land dotted with dozens of cranes can be seen along the town’s picturesque coast.
The Cambodian government, meanwhile, recently unveiled plans for “Wisney World”, a joint project between China’s AMC International and a Malaysian company. The US$1 billion self-contained resort project will host waterparks, hotels, casinos, and malls on 65 hectares of land.
The country’s banned opposition, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, believes that Hun Sen’s policies risk making Cambodia into a Chinese “vassal state.”
Sam Rainsy, co-founder of the now dissolved CNRP, alleges that Hun Sen is allowing China to build full-blown colonies in Cambodia.
“Cambodia’s Preah Sihanouk and Koh Kong provinces are becoming like Chinese colonies,” Rainsy said in a recent interview. “Hun Sen is selling off portions of Cambodia’s territories in order to have China’s support to help him cling to power through most undemocratic means,” he said.
Some independent analysts see the situation similarly. Bill Laurance, a professor at James Cook University and an expert on Chinese development abroad, said it would be “naïve” to think that China is interested in a mutually beneficial business relationship with Cambodia.
“It’s just not in their business culture – they focus almost exclusively on advancing their own interests,” Laurance said. “They can be like sharks in a feeding frenzy when the conditions are right for them and then vanish just as quickly if conditions change.”
A showroom model of a Chinese-invested complex including luxury residence condos and hotel in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, April 2018. Photo: AFP Forum
His global research shows that Chinese developers typically have no qualms about forcing locals off their lands to pave the way for their developments.
“In Africa, I have seen with my own eyes how Chinese mining and logging corporations are running roughshod over local Pygmy groups in the Congo Basin—tribes that have lived in those lands for many thousands of years,” he added.
Basu said she expects Chinese investments to continue inflating Cambodian property prices in Sihanoukville as well as in nearby Kampot and tourism-geared Siem Reap, home to the world famous Angkor Wat ruins.
Locals in Sihanoukville say that many landowners who struck it rich from Chinese buyers are now purchasing land in Kampot in speculation of a next wave of Chinese investments.
Cambodian businessman Try Pheap, owner of the Try Pheap Group, is building a port and oil refinery outside of Kampot town in cooperation with two Chinese companies, including the North Petroleum and Chemical Group.
Hun Sen has claimed the port, which will be capable of hosting vessels weighing between 10,000-30,000 tons, is part of China’s US$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative, according to pro-government media outlet Fresh News.
Men walk past portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping (center, L) and Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni ahead of his visit to Phnom Penh, October 11, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Samrang Pring
It’s also leading to activist allegations of abuse. At a ramshackle crab-fishing village next to the port’s site, fishermen complain that the construction is destroying the ecosystem they rely on for their livelihoods.
The Try Pheap Group declined to respond to Asia Times’ request for comment on the allegations. The North Petroleum and Chemical Group could not be reached for comment.
“Before there were mangroves,” said one elderly man gesturing at the waters ahead of him. He says mangroves previously stretched from his fishing village across the area’s lowlands that filled up with water during high tide. The company has since filled in the land and cleared the mangroves, leaving only a thin strip of land behind.
“We used to be able to catch crabs here, but now we have to go far away. All the way to the sea,” the fisherman said while complaining about his diminished catch. He says the companies have plans to fill the canal completely, which will eventually block the village from accessing the ocean altogether.
“We have no power to go against the [Chinese] company, the [Cambodian] owner of the land, so we just let it be,” he said wistfully.
Foreign Affairs minister says this new case doesn't appear to be connected to other detentions
CBC News ·
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland responds to questions during a cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que. on Thursday, January 17, 2019. Today she told reporters a Canadian citizen has been detained in Macau. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland confirmed today that a Canadian citizen has been detained in Macau, but said there's no reason to think his case is linked to those of two Canadians being held by Chinese authorities on alleged national security grounds.
Her comments came after reports this weekend from the South China Morning Post, citing local media, about a 61-year-old Canadian who was arrested and is accused of trying to defraud an unnamed entertainment company of $375 million.
The newspaper said the man, whose full name was not given in the articles, allegedly tried to use fake papers to transfer the money from the company's account to an account in Hong Kong.
Macau is an autonomous Chinese territory and maintains a legal system separate from that of mainland China.
"We have no reason to believe that his detention is in anyway connected with the other cases," Freeland told reporters, referring to the cases of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who have been detained in China since December on allegations of endangering national security.
"We are seeking more information and we are seeking consular access."
The Canadian's arrest comes against a backdrop of a deepening diplomatic crisis between Canada and China.
Spavor and Kovrig were detained shortly after Canadian authorities in Vancouver arrested Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive with Chinese firm Huawei Technologies, who is wanted by the U.S. on fraud charges.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a 13-count indictment charging Meng and Huawei with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Meng appeared in B.C. Supreme Court today for a bail adjustment hearing, where a judge agreed to a minor change in her bail conditions.
Another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, was recently sentenced to death in China for drug-smuggling offences — a sentence Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Chinese officials of "arbitrarily" applying.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a 13-count indictment against Huawei, a U.S. subsidiary (Huawei USA), an Iranian affiliate (Skycom), and Meng on charges ranging from bank fraud to money laundering and obstruction of justice.
Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said the U.S. is seeking an extradition order in Canada for Meng which include bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit both. Meng has said she is innocent of all charges, and China called on Washington to “stop the unreasonable crackdown” on Huawei.
“As early as 2007, Huawei employees allegedly began to misrepresent the company’s relationship with its Iranian affiliate, which is called Skycom,” Whitaker said during a press conference. “Huawei employees reportedly told banking partners that Huawei had sold its ownership interest in SkyCom. But these claims were false. In reality, Huawei had sold Skycom to itself.”
Whitaker alleged that Huawei attempted to hide the fact that the company was not in compliance with U.S. sanctions against Iran.
“These alleged false claims led banks to do business with the company, and therefore to unknowingly violate our laws,” he said, adding the one bank had “facilitated more than $100 million worth of Skycom transactions through the United States in four years.”
Whitaker said he was “deeply grateful” to the Canadian government for arresting Meng last month. Meng is currently out on bail and is expected to appear in a Vancouver courtroom Tuesday.
Huawei is also accused of lying to Congress and obstructing justice, Whitaker said, which included destroying evidence and moving potential witnesses back to China, out of the reach of U.S. prosecutors.
“As charged in the indictment, Huawei and its chief financial officer broke U.S. law and have engaged in a fraudulent financial scheme that is detrimental to the security of the United States,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.
Accusations of stealing trade secrets
The Huawei logo is pictured outside their research facility in Ottawa, Ont., Canada, Dec. 6, 2018.
REUTERS/Chris Wattie/File Photo
In a second case against the company, prosecutors unsealed a 10-count indictmentalleging Huawei employees tried to steal trade secrets, namely the design of a robot named “Tappy” from T-Mobile USA Inc. used for testing smartphones.
They allege Huawei managers offered bonuses to workers who could steal trade secrets from rival firms. Emails obtained during investigation reveal the conspiracy to steal secrets from T-Mobile was a company-wide effort involving many engineers and employees within Huawei, according to the indictment.
When T-Mobile originally discovered that its trade secrets were allegedly being compromised and raised concerns, Huawei claimed the employees involved in the theft were working as “rogue actors,” the indictment said.
“The charges unsealed today clearly allege that Huawei intentionally conspired to steal the intellectual property of an American company in an attempt to undermine the free and fair global marketplace,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “To the detriment of American ingenuity, Huawei continually disregarded the laws of the United States in the hopes of gaining an unfair economic advantage.”
News of the charges comes amid an ongoing political dispute between Canada and China that has seen several Canadians arrested in China’s apparent retaliation for Meng’s arrest.
Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor, have been arrested in China and held without charge, while Robert Schellenberg’s sentence for drug trafficking was suddenly upgraded from life in prison to death.
Ambassador to China John McCallum was fired after he personally weighed in on a Meng’s extradition case. McCallum said Meng might have “quite good arguments” to avoid extradition to the U.S. on fraud charges, though he later apologized.
The indictments also follow increasing calls from the U.S. for Canada to ban the telecommunications company from their 5G mobile networks.
“There is ample evidence to suggest that no major Chinese company is independent of the Chinese government and Communist Party – and Huawei, which China’s government and military tout as a ‘national champion,’ is no exception,” Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said in a statement.
“It has been clear for some time that Huawei poses a threat to our national security, and I applaud the Trump Administration for taking steps to finally hold the company accountable.”
WATCH: Trudeau says Canada to hold firm on ‘rule of law’ as U.S. charges Huawei officials
Huawei said it was “disappointed” to hear of the charges.
“After Ms. Meng’s arrest, the company sought an opportunity to discuss the Eastern District of New York investigation with the Justice Department, but the request was rejected without explanation,” a spokesperson for Huawei Technologies told Global News in an emailed statement.
“The allegations in the Western District of Washington trade secret indictment were already the subject of a civil suit that was settled by the parties after a Seattle jury found neither damages nor willful and malicious conduct on the trade secret claim. ”
The spokesperson said Huawei “denies that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations of U.S. law set forth in each of the indictments, is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng, and believes the U.S. courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion.”
