【ABC】China's expats 'could harm trade plans'

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China's expats 'could harm trade plans'By Stephanie March for Radio Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/11/2652702.htm?section=justin


Posted 3 hours 59 minutes ago
Updated 4 hours 0 minutes ago

Difficulties in handling its citizens' relationshipswith other peoples could harm China's efforts to establishinternational trade and strategic links, experts say.

Violence involving Chinese entrepreneurs and workers has been seenfrom the Pacific to North Africa and South America in recent years.

In Algeria earlier this month, 10 people were injured when dozens ofChinese migrant workers clashed with African business owners in adispute about a car park.

Over the past 10 years, Chinese trade with Africa has gone from $US10 billion to $106 billion.

Beijing funds numerous vital infrastructure projects in thepoverty-stricken continent and has been praised for helping somecountries maintain positive growth rates while others across the globeare slipping into recession.

But misunderstandings between newly established Chinese communitiesand Africans threaten these positive aspects of the relationship.

Risk analyst and former CIA official Scott Harrison is the head ofPacific Strategies and Assessments in Hong Kong and he warns theproblem will not go away in a hurry.

"It's kind of a tinder box, which I think will continue to raise itsugly head from time to time until the Chinese get smarter and moresavvy about dealing globally," he said.

Chinese businesses in Tonga, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guineahave also been the targets of violence - allegedly politicallymotivated - in the past few years.

Mr Harrison says it is likely to become more of a problem in other parts of the world.

"The Chinese have invested a great deal of time and effort and moneyin Africa, increasingly in Latin America," he told Radio Australia'sConnect Asia.

"And they have grown in significance because they come with openarms, few restrictions, they are willing to pay bribes and kickbackswhere others aren't."

A former professor of work organisation at RMIT University inMelbourne, Dr Mike Berrell, says the rapid movement of Chinese workersto Africa means neither side has had adequate time to become culturallyaware of the other.

"In China, there will be a lot of people coming from the rural areaswho will be going overseas because that is where the job opportunitiesare," he said.

"But it is those type of people who have had even less contact withforeigners in China, so that escalates the problem of culturalunderstanding."

In a country like Algeria, where seven out of 10 people over the ageof 30 are unemployed, analysts say locals resent the 35,000 Chinesemigrants who have jobs or run businesses.

"They are very xenophobic, they tend to be inward-looking and relyexclusively on themselves rather than outsiders," Mr Harrison said.

"So I think that foreign countries that have not had a great deal of exposure to China see this as arrogance."

But he says if these misunderstandings are not dealt with they couldthreaten what has until now been a mutually beneficial relationship.