Envy in Papua New Guinea as Chinese money pours in

PORT MORESBY - In Papua New Guinea’s capital, shanty towns without electricity or water that surround modern high-rise buildings are soon to be joined by a new project in the coastal city – a gleaming Chinatown complex.

Beijing is pouring vast sums of money into Papua New Guinea, a resource-rich jewel in the Pacific crown but one of the poorest countries in the world, because of its vast potential and position near crucial sea routes.

A slew of Chinese projects are popping up across Port Moresby, including the US$414 million (S$557 million) complex – Beijing’s biggest investment in Papua New Guinea – that will boast a cinema, hotel, apartments and restaurants.

But locals are aggrieved that they are seeing no obvious benefit from Beijing’s big spend, complaining that thousands of workers are being flown in and paid to work on large projects, only to send the money home.

“Why are we left out? What the Chinese can do, our people can do,” said former MP Gabia Gagarimabu, 62. “They are coming in and we are sitting there and watching.”

Unfinished or unused Chinese projects are also raising fears about the benefits of Beijing’s aid and stoking suspicion that it is worsening corruption in the country.

Cranes remain idle at the sprawling Chinatown site after years of Covid-19 delays.

A Chinese-built skyscraper, the tallest building in the country at 23 storeys, towers over the city’s skyline but sits empty after officials found multiple defects.

The walls of a convention centre built by China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit are covered in graffiti, with only guards and gardeners remaining at the site. They say electricity has been turned off since 2018.

“Projects become ghost projects. Where is the money? Where is the development?” asked Mr Gagarimabu.

‘Discriminated’

Beijing’s investment in the most populous South Pacific nation is for its “strategic location, plenty of oil and gas, minerals, plenty of opportunity”, said a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity.

China is now the country’s second-largest trading partner behind former colonial ruler Australia, with Beijing investing heavily in construction but also in energy, resources, retail and telecoms.

A new six-lane highway now runs through the capital.

The entrance of a school for 3,000 students is adorned with Chinese script, while bus stops with Chinese signage that were built for the 2018 Apec summit dot the city centre.

A national courthouse complex being built carries the name of a Beijing-headquartered state construction company.

Chinese state-owned media has said the investments are geared at improving living standards.

The investments have “no political strings attached”, Beijing’s Global Times newspaper said in an editorial in 2022.

Chinese migrants first settled in the Pacific islands in the 19th century, but a fresh influx – some illegal – since the 1980s has made them the focus of political unrest.

The latest wave of Belt and Road workers has only heightened communal tensions, sparking riots and looting of Chinese businesses.

Some Chinese workers refused to talk about the situation while others were more forthcoming.

“They (Chinese) are discriminated against locally. I am feeling it a little bit,” said 46-year-old Chen Jing, a phone repair stall owner.

‘Take everything’

Despite rumblings of discontent, Papua New Guinea’s government moved ahead and in 2018 became the first Pacific country to sign a memorandum of understanding for China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, a defining geopolitical project for President Xi Jinping.

In the following year, major Chinese companies operating in Papua New Guinea – mostly state-owned enterprises – shot up from 21 to 39, according to Mr Peter Connolly, who is researching China’s Pacific projects at the Australian National University.

At a Chinese minimart covered in metal bars to protect workers from armed robberies, manager Vincent He voiced support for more workers coming to Papua New Guinea.

“There are some jobs they just can’t do. They can’t help us,” said the businessman from China’s Fujian province, switching from English to Mandarin so that locals cannot understand him.

“I don’t know why they talk like this. We must have our own Chinese people doing it here.”

But growing Chinese business activity is feeding resentment because locals “fear for their economic and employment security”, said Associate Professor Sinclair Dinnen at the Australian National University.

The locals say relatively well-off Chinese migrants do not mix with society, send their earnings home and do not put it back into a country where around 40 per cent live below the bread line.

“The opportunity is not given to us. If we continue this, soon we won’t have a place to work,” said Ms Heather Yaninen, 60, who runs a cosmetics stall.

“They will come in and take everything.” AFP