Communist China’s Exploitation: Manipulating Neighbors for Economic and Strategic Dominance

 

 

 

The effects of China's BRI on Southeast Asia have been palpable, with quite mixed results. Indeed, it has delivered very underpinning infrastructure, but it has also given way to important challenges. In Indonesia, the BRI has grown from mere road and rail construction to urban development. However, the main problems with its operation lie in transparency, accountability, and risk management. It is these huge projects that put the social well-being of Indonesian citizens at risk, executed sometimes with less regard to proper planning and consideration of their environmental and social impacts.

 

In Cambodia, the BRI has upgraded infrastructure and connected some rural areas to the capital while boosting the local economy. Despite these benefits, many concerns still linger regarding corruption, labour exploitation, and environmental degradation. Most large-scale Chinese investments are driven by the need for development at breakneck speed, which comes at the cost of sustainability, affecting local communities and their ecosystems.

 

Although Vietnam has officially rolled out the red carpet for BRI, the challenges remain much alike. Most BRI projects in Vietnam are surrounded by a lack of transparency, face delays, come at high costs, and have an extremely non-transparent bidding process. In such scenarios, the benefits these projects bring to the socio-economic domain are superseded by the financial and political risks they pose.

 

 

The case of China's control over the water resources of Central Asia is highly representative of its exploitative practices. As the upstream hegemon in terms of water, China controls the flow of key transboundary rivers crucial to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and other Central Asian countries. Its vast damming and water diversion projects portray an acute water shortage and environmental degradation downstream. For example, water intake from the Illy and Irtysh rivers could result in the shrinking of Kazakhstan's Lake Balkhash and disturb water supplies in Russia.

 

Specifically, particularly the activities of China in the Xinjiang region have been a huge addition to these issues. Industrial pollution, along with intensive attention or water use for energy, manufacturing, and agriculture, becomes hazardous for the transboundary waters of Central Asian countries and poses some very acute ecological and human rights problems.

 

 

 

 

 

Another critical aspect of the exploitation strategy driven by China is its "debt trap diplomacy." Through BRI, China has been extending large loans to developing countries for infrastructure projects, entrapping these countries in unsustainable debt. Being unable to pay back the monetary loan amount, Sri Lanka and Laos are two such countries that have succumbed to refinancing—yielding up strategic assets like ports and special economic zones alike—to China. This practice not only erodes the sovereignty of these nations but equally allows geopolitical influences to spread over Asia.

 

 

The BRI has been subject to a myriad of accusations concerning human rights violations and exploitation of labour. Chinese companies in most BRI countries have been accused of exploiting local labour, violating working laws, and failing to protect the safety of workers at workstations. This has caused social unrest and severely dented the image of China as a responsible global player.

 

 

Another dimension of China's exploitative practices can be located in its relationship with Pakistan, particularly under the CPEC ambit, which is a flagship project of BRI. This segment shall look into how China has capitalised on Pakistan's economic vulnerabilities and caused grave economic, ecological, and social consequences for this South Asian nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

China's interest in Pakistan goes beyond infrastructural development to the exploitation of natural wealth. The Gwadar Port, one of the salient features of that CPEC, has been responsible for the displacement of various local communities and causes marine ecosystems to deteriorate. Chinese fishing fleets in Pakistani waters are hauling away local fish stocks, jeopardising the means of livelihood for local fishermen.

 

 

 

The influx of Chinese workers to Pakistan for the execution of CPEC projects has added tension within the nation. Usually, the local labourers are sidelined in work, and hence, a very high unemployment rate adds to social unrest. There have been reports of poor working conditions, low wages, and violations of labour rights that have surfaced as pointing at the exploitative nature of such projects.

 

 

 

The strategic interest of China in Pakistan is not related only to its economic exploitation. Gwadar Port provides China with a critically important foothold in the Arabian Sea, which helps boost its naval capabilities and augments influence in the Indian Ocean region—something that sounds alarm bells in neighbouring India and other forces across the region who see Chinese growing presence as a threat to regional security and stability.

 

 

 

In these practices towards its neighbours, it exposes a pattern of economic coercion, environmental degradation, and geopolitical manipulation. Even while able to spur some infrastructural development in participating countries, the BRI has created unsustainable debt for nations involved and instigated environmental degradation with social chaos.