Aung Gyi is forced to fish covertly under the shroud of night in western Myanmar waters as China bids to transform the strategically key region into a shipping and industrial hub, squeezing out locals who fear being left behind in the gold rush.
Myanmar has declared Rakhine state, associated by many worldwide with the military’s 2017 bloody crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, open for business but locals fear they are being left out of the gold rush as new rules restrict traditional practises.
Paddies and teak forests will be flattened for a colossal Beijing-backed factory zone and deep-sea port, which will serve as its neighboring giant’s gateway to the Indian Ocean. But the state’s promise for development comes with fishing restrictions — the waterways have been freed up for Chinese ships — a situation that has devastated local lives and livelihoods. “I might be beaten or arrested” if caught fishing illegally, Aung Gyi says as he lays shrimp out to dry by his dilapidated shack in a small fishing hamlet near the town of Kyaukphyu.
Photo: AFP
“But I have no choice. Otherwise, my family would starve,” the 28-year-old adds. Brutal military operations two years ago ravaged the state’s northern fringes and triggered an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, but central Rakhine was left largely unscathed. While many countries and companies remain squeamish about investing in the state, China and other regional giants have no such qualms. Billions of cubic metres of gas and millions of barrels of oil from off-shore rigs are already pumped each year from here across the country to southern China.
Beijing is now poised to cement its grip on the area with the deep-sea port, signed off in November last year, and a colossal Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of garment and food processing factories.
HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
Photo: AFP
Further offshore gas development and power stations are already under negotiation with “little if any consideration of the potential cumulative impacts”, says Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB) director Vicky Bowman.
Despite Myanmar’s authorities facing allegations of human rights abuses, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand are also competing with China to reap the economic benefits of working with the resource-rich country.
Civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi said in a recent interview with Japan’s Nikkei that Myanmar welcomes “all friends who are happy to cooperate with us.” But strong local sentiment has stopped projects in the past, such as the Bejing-backed Myitsone dam in northern Kachin state which stalled in the face of country-wide opposition. Today the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port and SEZ are a prize piece in China’s plethora of infrastructure projects spanning the globe under its Belt and Road initiative.
Myanmar last year succeeded in slashing the cost of port from US$7.2 billion to US$1.3 billion, although public details of the framework deal — as with other Chinese-led projects in the country — are scant. China already holds the largest share — around US$4 billion or 40 percent — of Myanmar’s foreign debt.
But economist and government advisor Sean Turnell says fears of the project turning into a debt-trap for Myanmar are no longer valid.
The country would not be “on the hook” if the venture failed, he says — in other words, Myanmar would not take on any outstanding debt.
‘OTHERS PEOPLE’S SLAVES’
Soe Win from the Kyaukphyu SEZ management committee says Myanmar is “definitely” in the stronger negotiating position. “We have control,” he says. He also insists locals will be in line for some of the 400,000 jobs the SEZ will bring to the area — and that they will be given “very good” resettlement deals.
But farmer Saw Maung Nu’s land is among territory earmarked to be swallowed up by the 4,200 acre site and he is scared. “If we’re told to leave, where will we live?” he asks, gesturing from a hilltop to neighboring countryside snapped up by powerful army generals and cronies eager for a windfall of Chinese cash.
The precedent does not bode well.
An onshore gas plant that turned operational in 2013 saw local people turfed from their land.
“They hardly gave us any money at all,” Nu Aye Thar says as she marches along a high-security fence surrounding the gasworks where she used to grow rice and vegetables.
“Without land, we’re simply other people’s slaves,” the 55-year-old adds.
Activist Soe Lwin agrees, saying locals stand to lose out completely from the “uncertain” projects.
“If the money from Rakhine State were actually spent in Rakhine, it would develop overnight.”
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located