Railroaded: The Financial Politics and the Labour Puzzle of Global China
"Railroaded: The Financial Politics and the Labour Puzzle of Global China", 15 July 2021
Chinese labourers have been a persistent component of Beijing-sponsored infrastructure projects overseas. [...] To begin, wary of its crumbling global image, Beijing is taking more care to make space for local actors when negotiating financial contracts for bilateral infrastructure projects. [...]
Taking a closer look, however, bosses like Du were themselves victims of the unpredictability of the railway project. In particular, the practice of cutting back on wage payments was a survival strategy amid the railway’s chronic funding deficiency. The root of the problem lies in the project’s financial arrangements, which were doomed to fall apart from the beginning. [...] Much of the burden has fallen on to the shoulders of small contractors like Du. [...]
This leaves us with two key takeaway points. First, this situation warrants a relational and systematic study of the labour issues of ‘Global China’, as the dynamics on a small construction site may be rooted in the realm of sovereign debt creation, as this case clearly shows. Second, the contours of such labour geography can provide a useful window for us to peek into important yet otherwise opaque realms of Global China that make for difficult observation, such as the broader financial health of large flagship projects.