The Chinese companies trying to buy strategic Pacific islands
Small businesses from China have scoured the globe for important strips of land. Are they trying to make money or are they a front for Beijing?
Taipei | Three years ago, Xu Changyu made his first attempt to get his hands on an island in the South Pacific. The vice-president of China Sam Enterprise Group quietly negotiated a 75-year lease on Tulagi, an islet with a natural deepwater harbour in the Solomon Islands.
The deal was blocked after the attorney-general declared it unlawful, but not without triggering suspicion among the public and the country’s traditional Western allies that China was looking to build a military base in a spot that once hosted the British, Japanese and US navies.
Financial Times
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