China Reform Monitor: No. 905

June 13:

The Communist Party of China has sent a delegation to Zimbabwe to investigate how Chinese nationals are relating to locals. After meeting with members of parliament, Yu Linxiang, head of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee of China’s National People's Congress, said: “Our delegation came to Zimbabwe to meet the Chinese people in Zimbabwe and particularly [to] learn how they live and how they deal with the Zimbabwean people. We are going to see how Chinese people are working and living here and we will hold a seminar with the Chinese people to encourage them to contribute more to the economic and social life of Zimbabwe,” he said in comments carried by Zimbabwe’s official Herald newspaper and the privately-owned NewsDay.

June 16:

China is financing and building a massive, state-of-the art military college for Zimbabwe’s armed forces. The facility is being built by the Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company with a $98 million Chinese loan approved by Zimbabwe’s parliament. Zimbabwe will repay the loan over 20 years through earnings from the Chiadzwa diamond mines controlled by Anjin Investments, another Chinese firm. In comments carried by Zimbabwe’s Daily News, Finance Minister Tendai Biti, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said of the loan: “There are friends who are willing to give Zimbabwe the money but the country does have the capacity to repay that debt.”

June 19:

Behind a thick wall of green shrubs, iron rails and monitoring cameras sits Chongqing’s “Internet special zone,” a 10 square km island in central China free from the Great Firewall, Internet monitors and restrictions. Foreign companies Singapore Pacific Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, and other IT firms have already expressed interest in carrying out offshore digital businesses in the designated area, which is located within the Liangjiang development zone. The special zone is for authorized admittance only and Chinese employees undergo strict inspections. Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekend) broke the news but was quickly ordered to remove the online version. Several news outlets including the Apple Daily reran the story. (English translation)

June 23:

Eleven People’s Liberation Army navy vessels including a missile destroyer and a submarine rescue ship passed between Okinawa and the Miyako islands into the East China Sea, the Japan’s Defense Ministry said. The warships, which had crossed the same waters into the Pacific Ocean from the East China Sea on June 8 and 9, headed back to China after completing naval exercises including target practice and unmanned helicopter flights in the western Pacific 1,500 km south of Okinawa, the Kyodo News Agency reports.

June 24:

South Africa’s Mail & Guardian reports that labor disputes are disrupting China’s efforts to build a military college in Mazowe, Zimbabwe and its diamond mining in Chiadzwa. Workers at the military college construction site went on strike two weeks ago, accusing the Chinese managers of assault and demanding an increase on their $4 daily wage. The Zimbabwe Construction and Allied Trade Workers Union has petitioned Zimbabwe’s Labor Ministry on their behalf and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara warned China’s firms: “This is our country and we are in charge of it. They must respect our laws,” he said. Meanwhile, in Chiadzwa, the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions, an ally of strongman Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF, has taken China’s Anjin Investment to court to recover back pay for miners. National Mine Workers' Union of Zimbabwe secretary Cotten Ndlovu said miners worked long hours for low pay with inadequate protective clothing. “We have been to Chinese-owned mines in the Midlands province. The conditions we found there are unimaginable. The safety of workers is at stake.”