Chinese take away?

By Sir Ronald Sanders


Problems have emerged in the Bahamas over the number of Chinese workers on a project funded in part by the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank of the People’s Republic of China.

The original number of Chinese workers appears extraordinarily high – 8,150 even though there is an undertaking from the owners of the project that the peak number of foreign workers, at any given time, will not exceed 5,000 non Bahamians.

Rightly, Bahamas’ Prime Minister, Hubert Ingraham, has raised concerns about the large number of Chinese workers. His concerns are particularly relevant against the background that, according to the International Monetary Fund “tourist arrivals declined by 10 percent and foreign direct investment fell by over 30 percent, leading to a sharp contraction in domestic activity and a large rise in unemployment” in the Bahamas in 2009.

Construction is a critical engine of growth in any economy, but especially so in small economies where payments to local workers and suppliers keep money in circulation over a wide area including supermarkets, transport providers, clothing and footwear stores, real estate rentals and banks.

If 8,150 Bahamians – or close to it as possible – could be employed in this project, it would definitely be a fillip to the Bahamian economy and help to expand domestic activity and create jobs directly and indirectly.

The issue troubled Ingraham enough for him to travel to China to raise the matter with the Chinese government and return to the Bahamas with the news that he had succeeded in securing $200 million dollars more for construction workers and for Bahamian sub-contractors, raising the total that would be allocated to them to $400 million.

How this translates into jobs for Bahamians and a reduction in the number of Chinese workers is unclear, but note should be taken that, not surprisingly, the opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) has characterised Ingraham’s journey to China as “a failure”. To be fair, it should also be pointed out that it was the PLP which introduced this project, known as Baha Mar, when it served as the government.

Baha Mar, projected to cost $2.5 billion, is a very large tourist project. On completion it is expected to rival the Bahamas’ biggest tourist plant, Atlantis, which was developed by Kerzner International. The operator behind Baha Mar is Caesars Entertainment Inc, a private gaming corporation that owns and operates over 50 casinos and seven golf courses under several brands. Prior to November 18, the Company was called Harrah’s Entertainment.

Ceasar’s, like every commercial business, puts its profitability first. In seeking financing from Ex-Im Bank of China, they apparently agreed that the work force, in effect, would be 71% Chinese and 29% Bahamian – a bitter pill to swallow in the best of economic times and certainly indigestible in the present economic climate.

No one in the Bahamas or elsewhere doubts the contribution that Baha Mar will make to the Bahamas economy in the short and long term, but the conditions of the Chinese loan rankles on the requirement for such a large number of Chinese workers.

After all, this is not aid. It is not even emergency or disaster aid when a high component of Chinese material and people would be acceptable. It is purely and simply a commercial contract, lending money that will have to be repaid.

The only reason one can surmise for the insistence on such a large number of Chinese workers, vastly outnumbering Bahamian ones, is that the Chinese will work for less and trade union conditions, and rights, would not apply in their case thus reducing the cost of the project.

This commentary is less concerned about the local politics of the Bahamas that are involved in this issue; more qualified people can comment on them. It is more concerned with the present and future relations between Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries and China.

The experience of African countries, notably Angola recently, in relation to China’s use of an overwhelming number of Chinese workers, shows a strain in their relations with China. In 2006, the former President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki famously remarked: Africa must guard against falling into a "colonial relationship" with China.

I have long argued that CARICOM countries should negotiate with China at least a long-term framework treaty that covers aid, trade and investment. It should be a treaty along the lines of the Lomé and Cotonou Agreements that existed with the European Union.

As in all their bargaining with third countries, the CARICOM states would secure better terms if they negotiated with China as a collective than if each of them tried to bargain alone. And, if they succeeded in settling a treaty with China, issues such as the paramountcy of local labour in commercial projects and in loan-funded projects could be settled upfront, as would issues such as the supremacy of labour laws and respect for human rights in the countries where such projects are undertaken.

To negotiate such a Treaty with China, however, CARICOM countries have to do one of two things: those who now recognise Taiwan over China will have to drop that stance so that there is a united CARICOM recognition of China only; or those that recognise China should proceed to negotiate the Treaty with China leaving the others to join when they can.

There is a small window of opportunity left to negotiate a meaningful treaty with China. As China grows more powerful economically crowding out CARICOM’s traditional aid donors and investment partners, it will become very difficult for small Caribbean countries to bargain for the best terms even on commercial projects.

Beggar thy neighbour policies will get CARICOM countries nowhere in the long term and the time is right for all CARICOM countries to strengthen their relations with China on the basis of a structured and predictable treaty.

My friend and fellow writer, Anthony Hall, wrote recently that Hubert Ingraham’s “challenge to China” on the issue of the 8,150 Chinese workers “is precedent setting... and it behoves all leaders in our region to support, and be prepared to emulate, the stand he’s taking: for together we stand, divided we fall”.

China has itself faced the challenges of division; it might – just might - respect Caribbean unity.

November 19, 2010

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Baha Mar agreement/Labor issue: China putting the squeeze on The Bahamas; Your country may be next...

China putting the squeeze on The Bahamas; Your country may be next...
By Anthony L. Hall


The Bahamas is having a precedent-setting dispute with China over a development agreement that calls for Chinese men to comprise the vast majority of workers on a $2.5 billion project (Baha Mar) that China is funding.

(FYI: Baha Mar is to comprise six hotels with approximately 3,500 rooms and condominiums, a 100,000-sq-ft casino, 200,000-sq-ft of convention space, twenty acres of beach and water parks, an 18-hole golf course, and a 60,000-sq-ft retail village. Just what the already overdeveloped island of New Providence needs...)

Specifically, China is demanding that this small Caribbean nation issue permits for 8,150 foreign workers, which would amount to 71% of the labor force needed for this project; notwithstanding that The Bahamas is teeming with unemployed men (and women) who are willing and able to do the work.

Of course, for over a decade now, China has been buying up influence throughout the Caribbean to enable it to exercise its economic, political, and, perhaps, even military power to further its national interests without question... let alone challenge. And nothing demonstrated its modus operandi in this respect quite like the way it allegedly bribed (or attempted to bribe) every nation in the region to sever ties with Taiwan: almost all of them, including The Bahamas, duly complied.

But the leaders of every one of these nations knew, or should have known, that, sooner or later, China would seek to use its influence in ways that were inimical to their national interests. And, lest anyone thinks I’m making too much of this, here’s the alarm I felt compelled to sound (again) earlier this year -- in a February 19 commentary entitled World beware: China calling in (loan-sharking) debts. In this case, China was having a dispute with the most powerful nation on earth, the United States, over its relationship, not with Taiwan or any other country, but with a powerless Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama:

“This episode should serve as a warning to all countries around the world that are not just lapping up China’s largesse, but are heralding it as a more worthy superpower than the United States. Because if the Chinese can spit such imperious and vindictive fire at the US over a relatively insignificant matter like [President Obama] meeting the Dalai Lama, just imagine what they would do to a less powerful country in a dispute over a truly significant matter.

“I anticipated that the Chinese would be every bit as arrogant in the use of their power as the Americans. But I never thought they would use it for such a petty cause. In point of fact here, in part, is how I admonished countries in the Caribbean and Latin America in this respect almost five years ago [in a February 22, 2005 commentary entitled “China buying political dominion”]:

‘What happens if China decides that it is in its strategic national interest to convert the container ports, factories, and chemical plants it has funded throughout the Caribbean into dual military and commercial use? Would these governments comply? Would they have any real choice? And when they do comply, would the US then blockade that island -- the way it blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis? Now, consider China making such strategic moves in Latin America where its purportedly benign Yuan diplomacy dwarfs its Caribbean operations. This new Cold War could then turn very hot indeed...’

“It clearly does not bode well that China has no compunctions about drawing moral and political equivalence between its beef with the US over the Dalai Lama and the US’s beef with it over internet espionage, unfair trade practices, and support for indicted war criminals like President Bashir of Sudan. Because irrational resentment in a regional menace like North Korea is one thing; in a global power like China it’s quite another.”

This brings me back to the dilemma in which The Bahamas now finds itself. To his credit, though, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham seems determined not to sell out his own people quite as blithely as The Bahamas sold out the Taiwanese. For here’s the defiant note he sounded only this week:

"We told the China State Construction Engineering Corporation from the first time we saw them more than a year ago that it was not possible to have that number of foreign workers on a job site with the Bahamian content being so low. Nothing has changed. We've been telling them that for more than a year. It appears that some people either don't take us seriously or they apparently think that we are so desperate that we will do whatever we are asked to do. But our strength is not weakened." (The Nassau Guardian, October 20, 2010)

As we used to say in the schoolyard, “them is fighting words”. It’s just too bad that Ingraham’s principled stand is being undermined by media speculation in The Bahamas that he’s taking it, not to further the interests of the Bahamian people, but to preserve the veritable tourism monopoly now being enjoyed by another foreign developer, Kerzner International.

Never mind that Kerzner’s Atlantis resort happens to be the country’s largest private employer; or that the Baha Mar agreement is fraught with all kinds of other provisions that make a mockery of The Bahamas’s national interests.

More to the point, whatever personal benefits Ingraham may derive from his evidently cozy relationship with Kerzner, there’s no gainsaying the principle at issue; namely, that no matter the developer or financier, the percentage of local to foreign workers on all development projects should be at least 70:30; i.e., in favor of local workers, not the other way around.

It would be one thing if this untenable percentage of foreign workers that China is attempting to impose were limited to the construction period. But we Caribbean natives are now painfully aware that developers have enjoyed such adhesive leverage in negotiations with our government officials that provisions allowing them to stack permanent staff positions with mostly foreign workers as well have become rather boiler plate.

This is why Ingraham’s challenge to China is so precedent setting. And, as the title to this commentary indicates, it behooves all leaders in our region to support, and be prepared to emulate, the stand he’s taking: for together we stand, divided we fall.

In fact, since this is now a very public dispute, I urge regional leaders to publish an open letter of support to show solidarity with Ingraham when he addresses this labor issue with Chinese officials later this month, in China no less...

Finally, to those who may have thought that China would be a more benign hegemon than the US, I offer yet another instructive cliché: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t...

October 22, 2010

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Bahamas Government plans resolution in Parliament on 5,000 Chinese workers to help construct the $2.6 billion Baha Mar project

Govt still planning vote on 5,000 Chinese workers
By TANEKA THOMPSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
tthompson@tribunemedia.net:



GOVERNMENT still plans to bring a resolution to Parliament prompting all members to vote for or against the work permit approvals of some 5,000 Chinese workers to help construct the $2.6 billion Baha Mar project, said National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest.

While the arrival of so many foreign workers in the country may be a bitter pill for some to swallow, Mr Turnquest said the long-term job opportunities and economic stimulus for Bahamians could be a big enough impetus to support the work permits.

"They propose to build six hotels providing 3,500 rooms, convention facilities, casinos, golf courses, a retail village. They propose to have I think it's 7,000 permanent jobs at the end and 3,300 temporary jobs during construction. So all of that will have to be factored in. It also has to be factored in that this is a period of high unemployment and that has to be taken into account.

"We're the government but we believe that members of Parliament who represent the people of the Bahamas ought to have a say in an unusual labour component," said Mr Turnquest, referring to the Progressive Liberal Party's opposition to the vote being brought to Parliament.

He added that although Baha Mar was given approval last month by the Chinese government for its redevelopment of Cable Beach it still has several conditions it must meet before its luxury project can begin. Mr Turnquest, who is also the leader of government business in the House of Assembly, declined to reveal those conditions when speaking to The Tribune earlier this week.

Chinese Ambassador Dingxian Hu is expected to present Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham with the official documents outlining the Chinese approval when he returns from China on August 18 or 19.

"The prime minister will meet with him then, when we expect to get the formal approval from the Chinese government. There are some conditions to the Chinese approval taking effect, from the Baha Mar's point of view.

"Once Baha Mar has fulfilled all its obligations the only question remains is if government agrees to provide work permits for Chinese workers," said Mr Turnquest.

There has been speculation in some quarters that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham will not approve the deal even though it was green-lighted by the Chinese.

However, Mr Turnquest dispelled the conjecture saying the government will respect the deal the developers signed with the Christie administration before it was voted out of office in 2007.

"The government has agreed to honour the deal," he said.

According to the developers, Baha Mar will employ approximately 4,000 Bahamians over the life of the construction period, expected to last almost four years.

Once the resort is fully operational, approximately 98 per cent of the staff will be Bahamian.

August 09, 2010

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International