Marshalls' debate

Debate

Chinese influx fuels

Fears are rife that Chinese businesses will wipe out Marshallese-owned firms resulting in a disastrous impact on the economy

By Gift Johnson

The influx of Chinese into the Marshall Islands dur ing 1997, the result of large numbers of passport sales in the People’s Republic of China, dominated the debate in the Nitijela’s (parliament’s) September- October session, so much so that after weeks of incessant and often ran corous criticism one cabinet minister finally chastised opposition senators for “nit-picking” on the government on passport/Chinese concerns.

A significant jump in the numbers of resident Chinese in Majuro has sparked an unprecedented backlash in the community, with concern about a flood of Chinese the mainstay of discussions among rank and file Marshallese.

Those concerns kept the daily broad casts of the Nitijela spiced with harsh crit icisms about the Chinese.

Leading government officials, and even a few local businessmen, defended the Chinese.

The government’s position regarding the Chinese is understandable in view of the fact that during the past two years, passport sales have netted the government at least SUSIO million, money which has covered government payroll, subsidised Air Marshall Islands operations, and paid for other government activities.

The debate centres on the concern that aggressive Chinese armed with Marshall Islands passports that exempt them from immigration control, will simply put Marshallese out of business and into the unemployment line.

“My concern is that in the next 10 years

even Gibson’s and Robert Reimers Enterprises (the two largest local retail businesses) won’t be able to stand up to this competition,” said Charles Domnick, a leading businessman who owns a variety of firms, including a large construction, dry dock and car rental business. “Sooner or later, they’ll own everything.”

Domnick said that he didn’t hold the aggressive, hard working nature of the Chinese against them, but that in the con text of the Marshall Islands, dozens of Chinese businesses will put Marshallese owned firms out of business, having a dis astrous impact on the economy.

Resources and Development minister Jiba Kabua, who told parliament that pass port sales had brought in SUSIO million, said he doubts that the concern for a Chinese “take over” is valid.

In the past year, the Chinese influx brought new currency into the country at a crucial time of need for the aid-dependent economy of the Marshalls, Kabua said.

“I suspect strongly that the economy was active rather than in a state of with drawal (because of Chinese investors),”

Kabua said.

“This addition infusion to the cash cir culation was from Chinese investors.”

Not all local businessmen share Domnick’s pessimistic assessment. RRE chief executive officer Ramsey Reimers said that while there have been obvious problems in the same situation in other Pacific Islands, “it is too early to tell here.”

A locally-based fleet of Chinese long liners does a substantial amount of provi sioning and fuelling business locally, and recently two Chinese restaurants have

leased space at RRE’s commercial centre.

Reimers primary concern is that the economic pie in the Marshalls is getting smaller, but the businesses fighting for a piece of it are increasing. Chinese emigra tion to the Marshalls, however, is basically a government problem, he observed. “If they have passports, they have just as much right to do business as we do,” Reimers said.

That’s exactly what worries Kwajalein Senator Ataji Balos, chairman of the Nitijela’s foreign relations and trade com mittee.

Balos said that the problem might seem small now, but it could develop into a major problem in the future if the numbers of Chinese moving to Majuro continued to rise.

He said that Chinese are increasingly occupying jobs that Marshallese could hold. Foreign Ministry officials claim that about 1000 passports have been sold, most ly to PRC nationals.

As an indication of how strongly anti- Chinese sentiments have risen, Bikini Senator Henchi Balos accused the Chinese of having yellow skin, being ignorant of island customs, and of having no “jowi” (the “lineage” that is the traditional claim to being a Marshall Islander).

Another senator, Aur Atoll representa tive Norman Matthew, retorted that the new Chinese Marshallese were an extremely positive development and valuable addition for the Islands.

And the debate rolled on, day after day, at the parliament. Near the end of the ses sion, in late September, Senator Ataji Balos made a point of saying that the Nitijela should strike all references of senators say ing they don’t like Chinese because this wasn’t the point of what was being said.

“We welcorpe them coming but we have to protect the interest of the people from the Marshall Islands,” he said.

“The Marshallese people can’t compete on this level,”

Domnick said of the competition that is pitting Marshallese against Chinese in for merly Marshallese-dominated industries, such as taxi businesses, small retail take out stores, restaurants, and auto repair shops.

“Who’s going to protect the Marshallese? It really bothers me because I don’t think that people understand the enor mity of the damage that has been done (through passport sales).

I’m not against the Chinese as a people.

I’m concerned about what’s going to hap pen to Marshallese.”

Before the Marshalls recognised the PRC in the early 19905, there was a rela tively large contingent of Taiwanese pre sent in Majuro.

But their numbers, and all Taiwan gov ernment personnel, dwindled as an imme diate consequence of PRC ties. Prior to 1997, there was only a handful of Chinese in business in Majuro.

You could name all the Chinese here; they’d been here for a number of years and people knew them.

The start of big time longline fishing, with Ting Hong operating the fish base in the mid-19905, brought dozens of Chinese longliners to Majuro, with the number of fishermen here at any one time peaking at about 700 in 1995.

Americans aside, the largest residents non-Marshallese community in the country are Filipinos.

Filipino staff medical and nursing posts at the hospital, are accountants and teach ers and are the backbone of the local con struction industry.

Many have married Marshallese, start ed families and become naturalised citizens (through lengths of residency, not by pur chasing passports.

There is an active Filipino association in Majuro, which sponsors a variety volun tary efforts for the Island. In short, their connections to the community are solid and longstanding.

And despite all of this, they are the sub ject of derision by many Marshallese, being criticised for everything from not being Americans (who, among Marshallese in the community, are generally favoured foreign ers) to taking jobs away from Marshallese (though only in the very recent past have younger Marshallese begun returning with some of the technical skills that the Filipino community brings to the country).

But with the arrival of what is in actu ality probably only several dozen Chinese (nobody, least of all immigration, seems to know exactly how many Chinese are in Majuro now), the antagonism has taken a marked shift away from the Filipinos.

For many Marshallese, the chief com plaints against the Chinese are that they can’t communicate (few of the new arrivals speak English) or mix, and that they are rude and oblivious to the offence they give Marshall Islanders. ■