What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Yeah, that place out 'there'. Anything not really Cambodia related should go here.
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Empty hotels, idle boats - What happens when a Pacific island upsets China
Empty hotel rooms, idle tour boats and shuttered travel agencies reveal widening fissures in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, which is caught in an escalating diplomatic tug-of-war between China and Taiwan.
19 Aug 2018 12:11PM
(Updated: 19 Aug 2018 03:21PM)

KOROR, Palau: Empty hotel rooms, idle tour boats and shuttered travel agencies reveal widening fissures in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, which is caught in an escalating diplomatic tug-of-war between China and Taiwan.

Late last year, China effectively banned tour groups to the idyllic tropical archipelago, branding it an illegal destination due to its lack of diplomatic status.

As China extends its influence across the Pacific, Palau is one of Taipei's 18 remaining allies worldwide and is under pressure to switch allegiances, officials and business people there say.

"There is an ongoing discussion about China weaponising tourism," said Jeffrey Barabe, owner of Palau Central Hotel and Palau Carolines Resort in Koror. "Some believe that the dollars were allowed to flow in and now they are pulling it back to try and get Palau to establish ties diplomatically."

In the commercial centre of Koror, the Chinese pullback is obvious. Hotel blocks and restaurants stand empty, travel agencies are boarded and boats which take tourists to Palau's green, mushroom shaped Rock Islands are docked at the piers.

Prior to the ban, Chinese tourists accounted for about half the visitors to Palau. Of the 122,000 visitors in 2017, 55,000 were from China and 9,000 from Taiwan, official data showed.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/wo ... a-10630766
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
xxxxxxx
Expatriate
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2016 8:57 am
Reputation: 177

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by xxxxxxx »

No Chinese tourist in Palau? Suddenly Palau is sounding like a very good holiday destination. Paradise. Sign me up.
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

xxxxxxx wrote: Mon Aug 20, 2018 6:50 pm No Chinese tourist in Palau? Suddenly Palau is sounding like a very good holiday destination. Paradise. Sign me up.
But how to get there?

China has forced a Pacific airline to close down because of diplomatic ties with Taiwan
Tara Francis Chan
19 Jul 2018, 02:44
An airline says a Chinese ban on tour groups visiting the Pacific nation of Palau has forced it to end its services "indefinitely."
Palau Pacific Airlines said sales plummeted since China began fining tour companies for planning trips to Taiwan allies Palau and the Vatican last year.
Beijing has been accused of "dollar diplomacy" in the past, luring Taiwan's allies away with promises of aid and investment, but now appears to be withholding crucial tourism dollars as a new attempt at influence.
Airlines have become a pawn in diplomatic rows this year as China successfully threatened foreign carriers to adhere to its political stance on Taiwan.
http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/palau- ... ies-2018-7
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
that genius
Expatriate
Posts: 4064
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 7:53 am
Reputation: 960
Sweden

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by that genius »

A major power using money as a weapon? The horror! How dare they!
User avatar
frank lee bent
Expatriate
Posts: 11330
Joined: Sat May 17, 2014 4:10 am
Reputation: 2094
United States of America

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by frank lee bent »

could be worse
CHINA could have more than one million people detained in what United Nations officials have described as a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy”.

Many credible reports suggest that Uighurs and Muslim minorities have been forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in western Xinjiang, according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/unit ... 724e348850
Gilmore
Expatriate
Posts: 106
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:12 am
Reputation: 74
Australia

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by Gilmore »

Part of an ongoing battle between China and Taiwan for support from Pacific Island nations. Both countries have been pouring in aid for years. Though small in population, e.g. Nauru 12,000, they all get a vote in the UN General Assembly. Taiwan wants their support for recognition and re-admittance to the UN. Japan is also active, as these countries are members of the International Whaling Commission and could assist their plans to overturn bans on commercial whaling.
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

This sounds familiar.

'Palau against China!': the tiny island standing up to a giant
Archipelago is refusing to switch diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, despite a huge downturn in its tourism industry
8 September 2018
A blessing in disguise?

Despite the pain, most people agree the boom was unsustainable.

At its peak in 2015, 169,000 tourists arrived in Palau and the country’s power, water and sewage systems struggled to cope. There was huge inflation, and the price of food and rent skyrocketed.

“There was an outcry,” says Ngiraibelas Tmetuchl, chairman of the Palau Visitors Authority, the government’s tourism marketing arm. “Prices of crabs went up, prices of fish, rents went up, people were displaced. There was an apartment that was going for $500, now they charge $1,200. There was a shortage of rooms. Apartments [were converted] from apartments to hotels.”

Kevin Mesebeluu, director of the bureau of tourism, says the China ban may be “a blessing in disguise”, giving Palau a chance to reevaluate its approach to tourism.

“The president has been very clear about the direction,” he said. “High-value, low-impact sustainable tourism.”

Indeed, the country was heading down this path before the ban came into effect. In 2015, Palau’s president, Tommy Remengesau, announced a reduction in the number of charter flights between China and Palau, in response to environmental and social concerns.

Reklani thinks this decision, which came into effect gradually, means Palau escaped much more serious financial trouble. “We definitely got out in time, this pain we’re going through, it would have been so much worse,” she says.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... st-country
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
bolueeleh
Expatriate
Posts: 4448
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:39 am
Reputation: 842
Location: anywhere with cheap bonks

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by bolueeleh »

post this article on H.E FB wall, who volunteer his/her account?
Money is not the problem, the problem is no money
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

FIJI: This project has now been closed down by the Fiji government, but the damage to the environment may take decades to repair.

Reef wipeout: surfers fight China-linked mega resort in Fiji
by Kate Lyons in Fiji
Fri 17 May 2019 01.35 BST

It was one of the most surreal days of Jona Ratu’s life. On a May morning in 2018 he strolled down to the palm-fringed beach on a parcel of land he owns on idyllic Malolo island to find a digger parked on the coral reef.

“They just dug, they kept digging, digging, digging,” Ratu remembers.

Despite his demands for them to stop, the work continued “with big diggers on the reef, with all the oil running in the water.”

‘At the start it was pristine’

The company that owned the diggers was Freesoul, a real estate development company with a strong presence in Fiji. The Chinese embassy in Suva has said it is not a Chinese company, but Freesoul has close ties to China. The Guardian has found business records showing Freesoul was founded in 2016 and registered to an address in Shanghai. The company has previously said it decided to launch the Malolo venture “upon the invitation of Prime Minister Bainimarama to business houses including Freesoul on one of his visits to China” and New Zealand’s Newsroom claimed it also had the backing of a state-run Chinese media company.

In 2018 – after Freesoul got a lease for the parcel of land next to Ratu, Fox and Jack’s – construction began. The company’s plan was to build Fiji’s largest holiday resort: roughly 350 bures (traditional Fijian bungalows with thatched roofs) and the nation’s first casino.

Samuela Namuatabu, a customary landowner on Malolo Island from Solevu village, says the impact of the work, which saw mangroves destroyed and trees cut down, has been huge. “We cannot go and fish there any more. We cannot go and get seashells there anymore, the nature has gone.”

Dr Ken Chambers, Fox, Jack and Ratu’s lawyer, says there was a disregard for the environment at every level of Freesoul’s work. “They had 50 workers hammering away for six months and the effluent from those workers just went straight out through a pipe into the lagoon. We’ve got a picture of the pipe going out from the toilet block.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... rt-in-fiji
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
markd
Expatriate
Posts: 406
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:16 am
Reputation: 66
Zimbabwe

Re: What happens when a Pacific island upsets China

Post by markd »

china dont give a shit about anyone except there president for life

the entire country is an example of ecosystem destruction without any regard for anything except $$$

makes a mockery of so called communism when their persuit for the $$$ is paid for by ecosystems extinction
thru shit to more shit
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Felgerkarb, Freightdog, John Bingham, Majestic-12 [Bot], newsgatherer, Old8404, Random Dude and 683 guests