by Bong Burgundy » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:53 am
Chinese money has made properties in the seaside village of Sihanoukville as expensive as Byron Bay. But now, crowded out by casinos and resorts, the locals are pushing back – literally.
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When several Chinese men dragged two Cambodian massage parlour workers out of a bar and forced them into a taxi, Som Neang says he couldn’t stand by and let them be kidnapped.
“Help me! The Chinese are taking me away! I don’t want to go!” one of the women was screaming.
Neang and other Cambodian motorcycle taxi drivers nearby demanded the women be released.
“The Chinese became angry and started attacking us,” Neang says. They were soon joined by others.
“There were more than 100 of them in the end, some with metal bars,” he says. “Many Cambodians joined in the fight, but some of us were beaten badly … when police arrived they fired shots into the air but the Chinese were not scared and kept fighting.”
Sihanoukville, once a sleepy coastal hamlet popular with backpackers, has been progressively populated by Chinese workers, developers, casinos and investors. It’s being touted by developers as the first port of call on Beijing’s $US1-trillion Belt and Road Initiative and some are saying that this little tourist town, carved out of jungle in the 1960s, will be the next Macau.
The city houses a deep-water port and a joint-country special economic zone which accommodates 121 mostly Chinese companies producing textiles, garments, machinery and electronics.
he 11-square-kilometre economic zone is being upgraded to accommodate 300 companies providing jobs for up to 100,000 workers, and a four-lane highway is proposed to link Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh, 220 kilometres to the north.
Connecting Sihanoukville to the BRI’s vast global network of rail, roads, ports, pipelines, fibre-optic cable and diplomacy is part of a radical change sweeping Cambodia.
Full story (well worth a read):
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/ ... 4zlqg.html
[quote]Chinese money has made properties in the seaside village of Sihanoukville as expensive as Byron Bay. But now, crowded out by casinos and resorts, the locals are pushing back – literally.
Share on Twitter
Send via Email
Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size
When several Chinese men dragged two Cambodian massage parlour workers out of a bar and forced them into a taxi, Som Neang says he couldn’t stand by and let them be kidnapped.
“Help me! The Chinese are taking me away! I don’t want to go!” one of the women was screaming.
Neang and other Cambodian motorcycle taxi drivers nearby demanded the women be released.
“The Chinese became angry and started attacking us,” Neang says. They were soon joined by others.
“There were more than 100 of them in the end, some with metal bars,” he says. “Many Cambodians joined in the fight, but some of us were beaten badly … when police arrived they fired shots into the air but the Chinese were not scared and kept fighting.”
Sihanoukville, once a sleepy coastal hamlet popular with backpackers, has been progressively populated by Chinese workers, developers, casinos and investors. It’s being touted by developers as the first port of call on Beijing’s $US1-trillion Belt and Road Initiative and some are saying that this little tourist town, carved out of jungle in the 1960s, will be the next Macau.
The city houses a deep-water port and a joint-country special economic zone which accommodates 121 mostly Chinese companies producing textiles, garments, machinery and electronics.
he 11-square-kilometre economic zone is being upgraded to accommodate 300 companies providing jobs for up to 100,000 workers, and a four-lane highway is proposed to link Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh, 220 kilometres to the north.
Connecting Sihanoukville to the BRI’s vast global network of rail, roads, ports, pipelines, fibre-optic cable and diplomacy is part of a radical change sweeping Cambodia.[/quote]
Full story (well worth a read): https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/asia/the-next-macau-china-s-big-gamble-in-cambodia-20180615-p4zlqg.html
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