China’s Neo-Colonial Slavery in PNG

China’s growing worldwide investment in natural resources is not a new story and just one of many results of a well-chronicled booming economy. What is new is the phenomenon of Chinese corporations dealing with the people and governments of countries supplying them with these mineral riches. A large-scale nickel extraction scheme in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one such endeavor, in which conflicts have arisen over allegations of corruption and inhumane treatment on the part of the Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC), one of China’s largest companies. MCC is accused of bypassing PNG’s immigration laws to bring large numbers of Chinese workers into the country to work at the nickel plant. Furthermore, the plant is purportedly unhygienic and treating workers, according to one PNG government official, like “slaves.” Globalized information networks and human-rights groups won’t grant impunity to China or any other major power to mistreat workers, even if they do live in the smallest countries of the world. – YaleGlobal