The Spiel
By Ricki Chavez-Munoz
Colonialism takes many forms and in the 21stCentury, as China moves towards replacing the USA as the future superpower, it is not puppet dictators or marines landing on a Caribbean island to crush a regime antagonistic to Uncle Sam’s interests. It is through the medium of good old capitalism than many Chinese businessmen are using countries like Cambodia to park their wealth, hiding profits from the Communist Party. Talk about full circle on the old exploitation of the masses lark.
One of the means of faster growth in South East Asia is the casino industry, land-based and online. While the former tries to move as quickly as it can, it’s the online business which is bringing some tension between China and the Philippines, where Chinese workers are being kept in specially designed hubs, some say in 19thcentury Dickensian conditions.
As reality shifts back and forth in Back to the Future fashion in South East Asia, the old backpackers’ stopover of seaside spot Sihanoukville has become a booming Cambodian coastal city, where Chinese nationals own more than 150 hotels and four dozen casinos. As high rises creep heavenwards like pantomime beanstalks, building conditions are some of the things that suffer, with tragic consequences in some cases.
It appears that local Cambodian building site workers are “housed” at the same building sites where they work in Sihanoukville, in conditions even more precarious than for Chinese workers in the Philippines hubs. As fortune has a way of bringing us back to reality from time to time, one of the building site blocks under redevelopment came tumbling down with a nasty loud crack, toppling to one side and trapping more than 50 workers beneath hunks of concrete and twisted metal on June 22.
More than two days later, the last of 26 survivors were pulled to safety leaving a tragic count of at least 28 Cambodians dead, making it the country’s deadliest building disaster in decades. No need for Khmer Rouge here, prosperity and new colonial forces doing very well, thanks, and a semblance of casino antipathy simmers in South East Asia.
Local reports state that for many Cambodians “the June 22 collapse and its aftermath were confirmation that their government cared more about courting Chinese investment than it did about them.” As Beijing expands its economic influence overseas, it has found few partners more willing than Cambodia’s authoritarian President Hun Sen, who has ushered in Chinese state-owned companies to build roads, bridges, hydroelectric plants, industrial estates and a port.
Cambodia’s strategic location, at the doorstep of the South China Sea, makes it a geopolitical prize, and Beijing’s support – backed by billions of dollars in loans – has helped Hun Sen weather US criticism of crackdowns against opposition parties, civil society groups and independent media, which has made Cambodia effectively a one-party state.
As China grooms local businessmen and firms with massive financial support to expand overseas, locations like Sihanoukville are in the first line of the new colonial wave. Nowhere in Cambodia is the Chinese presence more visible than in Sihanoukville, a city of 300,000 that locals say has become a de facto colony of Beijing. Provincial officials say Chinese nationals own 90 per cent of businesses.
Beside the metal detectors at one gambling hall entrance, a sign stated: No Cambodians allowed. “It feels like a Chinese town, not a Cambodian town,” said Teng Soda, a 35-year-old who rented her house in central Sihanoukville last year to a Chinese investor and moved with her husband and two children to the city’s outskirts. Cambodian officials speak glowingly of “a city of miracles” but she says that runaway development has made life miserable for its original inhabitants. Cranes tower above muddy, potholed streets. Rolls-Royces park next to piles of burning trash. Power goes out regularly.
Asians learn fast and the Chinese are learning at the speed of a roulette wheel. As Macau casino licences are due for renewal by 2020 (MGM and SJM) and 2022, some of the new Chinese casino operators, getting their operations and corporate training in Macau and other South East Asia casino destinations, are likely to bid for some of the Macao casino licences. Up to now these have been the preserve of the Ho dynasty and US moguls from Las Vegas. Casino wars will simmer in South East Asia for a while yet.
