The Communist Party of China (CPC) has been promoting the “Belt and Road” project around the world, and has touted the project’s generous benefits at home, attracting large numbers of poor workers. But the U.S. media revealed that the project is based on the oppression of Chinese laborers. When they go overseas, their passports are confiscated, their wages are withheld, they are not allowed to return home, and they are even threatened with “disappearance.
Interviews with labor rights advocates and a dozen Chinese workers employed by Communist Party-owned companies and subcontractors reflect a pattern of abuse in the Belt and Road project, according to a lengthy report published April 30 in The Washington Post.
The plight of Chinese laborers
In a new report, New York-based China Labor Watch says that overseas Chinese workers are victims of human trafficking and forced labor. Workers describe being held against their will, forced to work under the risk of contracting the coronavirus, a Chinese Communist virus, and tricked into doing so illegally. They said their passports had been confiscated and that most had not been paid for months. Some say they have been beaten or forced to undergo “ideological training” for protesting working conditions.
“The whole ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative is based on forced labor.” Li Qiang, director of China Labor Watch, whose report is based on interviews with Belt and Road workers in six countries, was quoted by the WaPo as saying. “The Chinese (Communist) authorities want to gain political benefits through the Belt and Road project and need to use these workers,” he said. He said.
The Communist Party’s Ministry of Commerce did not respond to Huapost’s request for comment on the Chinese laborers’ allegations.
The Chinese laborers also allege that they have been barred from returning home, forced to continue working, overworked and detained in company facilities. For its part, the Communist Party’s foreign ministry said it could not immediately respond to allegations of mistreatment of Chinese laborers and that more time was needed to verify them.
The projects rely on men from poor rural areas of China who are willing to work for meager wages, the report said. As China’s construction industry slows, more people are going overseas; about 1 million Chinese workers are overseas in 2019, according to official figures. The researchers say the actual number is likely much higher, taking into account the number of workers leaving the country through informal channels.
Workers interviewed by China Labor Watch said they work 12-hour days in dangerous conditions with little protection. One worker was paralyzed after being struck by a hammer. In Indonesia, a worker was crushed to death by a truck. Another worker said he lost sight in one eye after being injured on the job.
Many said their employers did not obtain official work visas, making the Chinese workers illegal immigrants. Others described being bought and resold by middlemen and subcontractors.
China Labor Watch: Communist Party Relies on Disdain for Human Rights to Gain Competitive Advantage in Exports
“Abuses are everywhere.” China Labor Watch Director Li Qiang said, “China’s competitive advantage for exports is its contempt for human rights.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s viral pandemic has worsened labor working conditions, the WaPo said. To keep projects on track, companies are forcing workers to keep working by withholding wages, workers said. Employers are refusing to pay for promised trips home because of soaring prices for limited flights back to China. If workers could not pay the thousands of dollars in additional costs, they could not return.
The article also revealed that a Belt and Road Chinese worker was quarantined without medical attention after contracting a virus in Indonesia last year, and was eventually found dead by his colleagues.
In Indonesia’s Delong Industrial Park, China’s Jiangsu Delong Nickel and Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) celebrated a new stage in the stainless steel process in January, but the workers were eager to leave. One Chinese employee theorized with his manager and asked to be allowed to return, but was brutally beaten and handcuffed by security guards.
Instead, MCC said on its website that no one returned to China last year and that the workers fully understood the requirements of the epidemic control and would continue to stay and fight on the front line of the construction.
Chinese employees found out they were duped after working
The article reveals that the Chinese workers who went overseas to participate in the Belt and Road project were deceived by the project’s rosy propaganda. Like many, Deng Zukun, 53, was optimistic before arriving in Algeria, lured by the promise of a job that would “contribute to the national cause.
He borrowed money so he could pay a $1,500 “deposit” to an employment agency to find a job with a Chinese subcontractor working on a Belt and Road project. Before starting work in 2018, he watched news clips about the projects, which detailed preferential treatment and high wages.
“When I arrived (in Algeria), it wasn’t like that at all.” Deng said. His employer took his passport. The pay was less than promised, and he wasn’t given a work visa.
Deng wanted to leave, but couldn’t afford a fine of up to $4,650, the equivalent of six months’ salary. His contract ended in October, but he hasn’t been able to return home and is running out of money on hand.
“We got ripped off …… and ended up as illegal immigrants.” He said, “They don’t care if the workers live or die.”
For Niu Zepeng, 40, who is building apartments in Algeria’s Souk Ahras province, the Belt and Road program has also frustrated him. He said he was stuck there, owed more than a year’s wages, and he had to borrow money. “We were abandoned here.” Niu said.
Chinese Communist government wants critics to shut up
The WaPo said the political importance of the Belt and Road project has increased pressure for the projects to go ahead.
The abuse of workers not only risks embarrassing Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative, but may violate international law, the report said. Li Qiang said all 11 indicators of forced labor listed by the International Labor Organization, from debt bondage to excessive overtime and abusive conditions, are present in the Chinese workplace as described by interviewees.
Researchers on China face abuse and sanctions as the Chinese Communist government looks to silence critics.
Li Qiang said many of the workers the advocacy group interviewed feared they would get themselves into trouble by “tarnishing” China’s (CCP) image. Many said things like, “Don’t embarrass China (CCP).
In Indonesia, a Chinese worker named Ding said he was told by a manager that he could be “disappeared” if he continued to complain. A Chinese citizen journalist who writes about overseas labor issues said police contacted his family and warned him that he should stop reporting.
Ding, a Chinese worker, said his passport was taken by his employer when he arrived in 2019. He is still in Indonesia. He hasn’t been able to send money to his wife and two children for more than a year.
He remembers a time when he was unable to buy a doll for his daughter, a moment that prompted his decision to look for work overseas. “As a father, I felt like a failure.” Ding says, “I wanted to have a better life.”
“Chinese laborers often squeezed in Belt and Road projects
This is not the first time that Chinese laborers have been subjected to misery in overseas projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. “Hong Kong Free Press” (HKFP) reported on November 3, 2019, that in 2017, shortly after the opening of a new casino on the U.S. island of Saipan, a U.S. federal government investigation found that the project’s general contractor, China Metallurgical Corporation Limited (CMG), violated labor rights by underpaying hundreds of Construction workers were underpaid millions of dollars. Workers were not compensated even for work-related injuries.
Voice of America has interviewed a technical employee who goes by the name Li Dong. Li Dong is an employee of the Guangxi Hydropower Engineering Bureau of China Energy Construction Group, a Communist Party state-owned enterprise, in Angola, Africa.
He said that he only got paid once in a year, which was only 40 percent of what he was promised in his labor contract. The daily life is the same: the morning meeting is held at 6:30 a.m., after which the workers start to work one after another, “basically there is no time to eat, until 6:30 p.m. The work is so intense that when they return to the camp, they just want to take a shower and sleep.”
The company also refuses to pay medical insurance on the grounds that it is not in a position to do so.
The company also refused to pay medical insurance, on the grounds that it had purchased overseas personal accident insurance for its employees, but no one had ever seen the policy, and “everyone knew by heart that this thing had not been bought at all.”
“We are like piglets in the past, being squeezed here.” Li Dong said.
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