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Comment by HillaryBriss | Hacker News Reader

I don't know. Maybe this article is biased: China gets access to each country's raw materials - minerals, metals, wood, fuel, foodstuffs. Still, this doesn't usually mean long-term jobs for local people. Large numbers of Chinese are usually brought in to do the work. Country after country has discovered that Chinese investment helps China's economy a great deal more than it helps them. And in some places - South Africa is one of them - there are complaints that China's involvement tends to bring greater corruption.

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In Cambodia, the Chinese have invested heavily in Shihanoukville, which the government there have boasted about before. But all the casinos and hotels they built are Chinese-language, staffed by Chinese people, and serving Chinese customers. The local Khmer people cannot get jobs there, and have been pushed out of the town.

In Bali, Chinese tour operators package Chinese-owned hotels and Chinese-owned restaurants for Chinese citizens to enjoy. They make a mess of the beauty spots and don't spend any money on local businesses. The Balinese are furious but can't do anything about it.

In Thailand, the story is much the same. Chinese business profit, the local economy doesn't.

Learning Mandarin doesn't help - the Chinese tourists don't appear to want to have any contact with the locals.

Western tourists may be rude, ignorant, drunken and disrespectable, but they have always been a good source of income.

In Australia, there are Chinese mines entirely staffed with Chinese workers, flown there direct from China. The local population get zero economic benefit. The state governments get royalty payments for the mine (that every mining operation has to pay).

I don't think the article is biased. I think it understates the situation.

Maybe this article is biased

I read the passage you quoted carefully, and I don't see the bias. Each sentence has been the subject of media coverage for the last five years or so.

Is there a specific sentence, or word to which you object?

yeah. I wondered about the objectivity because it says "there are complaints that China's involvement tends to bring greater corruption" and because I looked in vain for any positive message about countries that have historically done deals with China. at least some of these deals in some of these countries must have been positive somewhere, but this article does not give that view as much voice.

and, on the other side, where is the objectivity and criticism about the already present US military base? US bases are notorious for polluting the land and water with toxic and hazardous substances. there's a long history of such problems on former US military bases, even those within the US. but this article does not mention it.

What you describe sounds beyond the scope of the article. This is a news article from a daily news operation, not an investigation.

It sounds like what you're looking for is long-form in-depth analysis. You're not going to get that from the news section of the BBC web site. That's not what it's for.

What you desire would be found in another part of the BBC, or a reputable magazine, or a book, or a documentary.

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