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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - Worldwide backlash against PRC workers!</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
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</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>Dec-21 11:50 pm </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 6) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>26113.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>Dec 22, 2009
Backlash against Chinese workers
They are accused of stealing jobs in countries like Vietnam and keeping to their own kind
TRUNG SON (VIETNAM): It seemed as if this village in northern Vietnam had struck gold when a Chinese and a Japanese company arrived to jointly build a coal-fired power plant. Thousands of jobs would start flowing in, or so the locals had hoped.
Four years later, the Haiphong Thermal Power Plant is nearing completion. But only a few hundred Vietnamese ever received jobs.
Most of the workers were Chinese, about 1,500 at the peak. Hundreds of them are still here, toiling by day on the dusty construction site and cloistered at night in dingy dormitories.
China, famous for its export of cheap goods, is increasingly known for shipping out cheap labour. These global migrants often work in factories or on Chinese-run construction and engineering projects, though the range of jobs is astonishing: from planting flowers in the Netherlands to doing secretarial work in Singapore to herding cows in Mongolia - even delivering newspapers in the Middle East.
But a backlash against them has grown. Across Asia and Africa, episodes of protest and violence against them have flared.
Vietnam and India are among the nations that have moved this year to impose new labour rules for foreign companies and restrict the number of Chinese workers allowed to enter.
In Vietnam, dissidents and intellectuals are using the issue of Chinese labour to challenge Vietnam's governing Communist Party. A lawyer has sued Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung over his approval of a Chinese bauxite mining project, and the National Assembly is questioning top officials over Chinese contracts, both unusual moves in this authoritarian state.
In July, a senior official in Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security said that 35,000 Chinese workers were in Vietnam, according to Tuoi Tre, a progressive newspaper. The announcement shocked many Vietnamese.
One reason for the tensions, economists say, is that there are plenty of unemployed or underemployed people in this country of 87 million. Vietnam itself exports cheap labour; half a million Vietnamese are working abroad, according to a newspaper published by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour.
Chinese executives say that Chinese workers are not always less expensive, but that they tend to be more skilled and easier to manage than local workers. But in some countries, local residents accuse the Chinese of stealing jobs, staying on illegally and isolating themselves by building bubble worlds that replicate life in China, not unlike American military bases in the Middle East.
'There are entire Chinese villages now,' said Ms Pham Chi Lan, former executive vice-president of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 'We've never seen such a practice on projects done by companies from other countries.'
[email protected]
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Backlash against Chinese workers
They are accused of stealing jobs in countries like Vietnam and keeping to their own kind
TRUNG SON (VIETNAM): It seemed as if this village in northern Vietnam had struck gold when a Chinese and a Japanese company arrived to jointly build a coal-fired power plant. Thousands of jobs would start flowing in, or so the locals had hoped.
Four years later, the Haiphong Thermal Power Plant is nearing completion. But only a few hundred Vietnamese ever received jobs.
Most of the workers were Chinese, about 1,500 at the peak. Hundreds of them are still here, toiling by day on the dusty construction site and cloistered at night in dingy dormitories.
China, famous for its export of cheap goods, is increasingly known for shipping out cheap labour. These global migrants often work in factories or on Chinese-run construction and engineering projects, though the range of jobs is astonishing: from planting flowers in the Netherlands to doing secretarial work in Singapore to herding cows in Mongolia - even delivering newspapers in the Middle East.
But a backlash against them has grown. Across Asia and Africa, episodes of protest and violence against them have flared.
Vietnam and India are among the nations that have moved this year to impose new labour rules for foreign companies and restrict the number of Chinese workers allowed to enter.
In Vietnam, dissidents and intellectuals are using the issue of Chinese labour to challenge Vietnam's governing Communist Party. A lawyer has sued Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung over his approval of a Chinese bauxite mining project, and the National Assembly is questioning top officials over Chinese contracts, both unusual moves in this authoritarian state.
In July, a senior official in Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security said that 35,000 Chinese workers were in Vietnam, according to Tuoi Tre, a progressive newspaper. The announcement shocked many Vietnamese.
One reason for the tensions, economists say, is that there are plenty of unemployed or underemployed people in this country of 87 million. Vietnam itself exports cheap labour; half a million Vietnamese are working abroad, according to a newspaper published by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour.
Chinese executives say that Chinese workers are not always less expensive, but that they tend to be more skilled and easier to manage than local workers. But in some countries, local residents accuse the Chinese of stealing jobs, staying on illegally and isolating themselves by building bubble worlds that replicate life in China, not unlike American military bases in the Middle East.
'There are entire Chinese villages now,' said Ms Pham Chi Lan, former executive vice-president of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 'We've never seen such a practice on projects done by companies from other countries.'
[email protected]
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