Beware of Chinese bearing 'gifts'

Recent incidents in Myanmar and Vietnam offer lessons for the Thai government under Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on how to deal with China over development projects. 

Thailand and China have signed a memorandum of understanding for joint construction of a rail link from Nong Khai to Bangkok and Map Ta Phut on the eastern seaboard. China will provide financial and technical support for the project.

The Transport Ministry will this month begin work on a feasibility study and the design of the network with its Chinese counterpart.

Asking for China’s help in developing infrastructure is not a mistake, but the host country must have a strong strategy for investment and development if any joint project is to succeed.

Countries in this region have much experience in dealing with Chinese project developers, and not all of it has yielded good results.

Last week Vietnam publicly reprimanded a Chinese rail company over accidents on a key elevated railway construction project in the capital, Hanoi. Vietnam’s transport minister Dinh La Thang was pictured jabbing his finger and shouting at a representative of the China Railway Sixth Group, during television news report of a meeting.

“Each time an accident happens, you accept responsibility, but things have not changed,” he said. “This time, even if you use the excuse that we have loaned the money [for the project from China], I can ask our government to replace you. We cannot trade [Chinese] loans for Vietnamese lives.”

Thang’s loss of patience came after a scaffolding collapse nearly killed a taxi driver and his passengers, and a month after an incident involving a crane left one person dead.

The project to build Hanoi’s first urban railway, with a preferential loan from the Chinese government, has faced repeated delays that have cost Vietnam approximately $300 million in total, according to the Voice of America.

More warning signs flashed in Myanmar last month when a 56-year-old woman was shot dead and others injured during a protest against a Chinese-run copper mine. The dispute between local residents and the Chinese enterprise is a long-running one, and  Myanmar authorities seem powerless to resolve it.

Angry locals say thousands of acres their land has been confiscated to make way for the Letpadaung mine in Monywa, about 100 kilometres west of Mandalay. In November 2012, more than 100 protesters, including at least 67 monks, were injured in a violent crackdown by riot police at the mine.

Chinese enterprises – both state-run and private – have been involved in large foreign development projects for many years, but their social and environmental practices are not internationally accepted.

Often complicating things further are the host country’s bilateral relations with China. In the case of Vietnam, ties between Hanoi and Beijing are currently strained by a territorial conflict in the South China Sea. Anti-Chinese sentiment came to the boil last year amid a stand-off over a Chinese oil rig in disputed waters. Vietnamese protesters rioted and damaged Chinese-owned businesses across Vietnam.

In this climate of tension, the Vietnamese government and public have little patience for “irregularities” in domestic projects backed by the Chinese.  

The case of Myanmar is a little different, as leaders in Nay Pyi Taw remain politically and economically reliant on Beijing. The so-called reform era ushered in by Thein Sein’s government has not yet steered Myanmar far away from Chinese influence. Though President Thein Sein suspended the $3.6-billion, Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam project in 2011, similar projects are going ahead, and several face protests from local residents that the authorities are as yet unable to resolve.

The Thai government can avoid the pitfalls of China-backed projects, but only if it learns from the experience of its regional neighbours and finds ways solve the obstacles posed by Chinese investment .