Loomnie On China
In continuation of my Sino-China obsession, ( I wonder if you can call it an obsession though!), here is Loomnie's piece..Another important point is that when Chinese companies do business in Africa they ship in about everybody they need to work on the projects from China. A case in point is that of railway constructions in Angola, a country that suffers from serious unemployment. The BBC reports popular discussions by Angolans that the Chinese workers are nothing other than prisoners, especially because they never leave their camps
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6Comment(s):
One thing that has never endeared me to the chinese is their treatment of their people...workers, prisoners, citizens.
I always feel there is something sinister at play when I see chinese at work. And they are so talented...or are they?
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
@ Catwalq nice observation, that is the reaon why the Chinese economic growth has often been described as unnatural. But the other alternative to these growth however seem to be worse. I'd take bad treatement for economic growth anyday over the way Nigeria is presently. What do you think.
I don't blame the Chinese, neither do I blame any foreign company/organization that comes to do business in Africa. See, in Africa, Nigeria for example: we don't have Laws, no rules no regulations. Our leaders make laws that put us into slave-trade positions.Why? once they get their own share of egunje's for signing the contracts that would hang us by the neck, they don't think of 'repercussions'.
@Omodudu
Its not just business, it should be a matter of reciprocity. Example: why should a Chinese company ship in Chinese bricklayers to come and build up an office space in Abuja(for example) when there are countless number of unemployed ppl walking around? Now, they bring in their bricklayers, and buy the cement and other things locally-and do whatever they want to do - with a police escort in tow. Are they telling us that in 2007, there are 'no qualified bricklayers' in Nigeria? Can the Nigerian Embassy in China apply for working visas for Nigerian bricklayers to go build the Nigerian Embassy in China?
Go around manufacturing companies run by Chinese in Nigeria and you might just burst into tears. I really can't say the multitude of local staff of these Chinese run companies are actually 'working'.
Worse: when a no-brainer is imported into Nigeria and given the title 'expatriate'. Forget the the lack of English language communication skills, im talking a total lack of Aptitude.
What are the rules and regulations imposed on Nigerian businessmen abroad - as per how they should do business, who they must employ, how long they should employ, terms of the employment, salary/welfare scheme etc?....When a boss doesn't know what he's supposed to do and has to learn from his staff, even learning the most basic things about the job he was employed for, and his subordinates have to put him through what he should have been taught in Univ? Is such a pitiable situation reciprocable as far as Nigeria is concerned.
Does the Nigerian government impose rules of brick and stone on foreign owned/Chinese companies?
Do they even care?
as they say: the enemies of a man are they of his own house!!
well said mypenmypaper...the west and now the chinese will only do what you allow them to do...if you allow them to come with their own workers when college graduates sit looking for work, well...and then you want to crack down on 419 instead of creating jobs...that would cut crime quickly...i knew it...when i was in ghana and they were singing praises to the chinese, something wasn't right for me...and here we are...africa needs to look within and stop looking out!...it is soo annoying!!...
mypenandpaper and guerreiranigeriana, that was exactly my point in the post. We can shout about the exploitation of Africa by China, we could even call it a second colonisation and it wouldn't bother me too much because it is the way things have always worked: industrialising countries need raw materials, and they have to go to countries with the materials. What bothers me is the lack of responsibility on the part of African governments. The stance of regular critics of the way China does business in Africa has always been one that looks at a 'bigger picture', but when one looks at the immediate effect on the population one gets really disgusted. What we (and you can include well-meaning Western countries in the 'we') should be clamouring for is better use of initiative and discretion by our governments. China is in Africa, and will be there for quite a while, but why do we have to suffer more than we did during the heyday of western colonisation? Why do we have to open up ourselves, this time willingly, and watch them take away employment right from under our noses? A major shout should be against the importation of unneeded, unqualified labour, that could be got from any village in Africa.