Undercover In Guyana: Exposing Chinese Business in South America

So I've been driving around for a while and this is like a huge expanse of land that has been mined and is still being mined. It can be seen that many workers are still operating here. Most of these people are actually local Guyanese. but more recently some Chinese miners have arrived. Guyana is one of the smallest countries in South America. The largely underdeveloped nation is rich in gold, timber and other natural resources that have recently attracted foreign investment from China. This science is China's growing presence in Guyana is part of its largest investment in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Last year, China's investment and construction projects in the region approached $16 billion, four times more than in 2005. During that time, Chinese state banks also lent more than $130 billion to the governments. In the region, loans often go to finance infrastructure projects managed by Chinese state-owned companies. Much of this investment comes from China's Belt and Road initiative. An ambitious push to bring development finance and soft power influence to the world. In Guyana, one of the flagship infrastructure projects is a hydroelectric power plant to be built deep in the rainforest, we flew over the site with land rights activist Michael McGarrell, who travels around the country mapping the threats to indigenous territories, so that is the road that leads to the hydroelectric project site, so this is where they are we are going to build a hydroelectric plant and it is the Chinese who are building this, yes, the Chinese are the ones who are building it They are doing.

It is going to flood large areas of land. The biodiversity that lives in this area will die. The indigenous peoples who hunt and fish. In this area, I mean that building a dam will decimate the fact that Guyana's largely intact rainforest functions as a crucial carbon sink. Capture more carbon dioxide than the nation emits. Keeping it intact is crucial not only for the tribes that live here but also to alleviate the effects of the climate. change around the world mcgowan brought us to the town of morowa where members of the patamona tribe are fighting to get legal recognition of their lands we want a property title so that no company can come in and say oh this is our black or this because It belongs to us, the people, the first people of this country, it belongs to us, it is not for a company from China, not from the United States, companies are demanding rights, including a Chinese logging operation and license holders to mine gold in my GPS, here I can see the mining. concessions around also yeah oh wow so we're actually in the middle of a bunch of mining concessions here does that mean there will be mining at some point?

Yes, there will be at some point isn't it inevitable that as Guyana's opening up to this way of life and the communities of indigenous peoples are going to change, yes, things are changing, the world is moving forward, but we must determine at what pace change, Guyana is changing faster than McGarrell would like, a huge oil discovery has transformed Guyana's economy in China, one of the fastest growing companies in the world, is set to capitalize not only on its share in oil reserves, but also financing the roads, hotels and other infrastructure needed to drive that growth, but there are concerns that China, with its enormous influence, could benefit unfairly.

Due to the country's rapid rise, which left Guyana's citizens behind, Chinese infrastructure spending in other developing nations has been criticized as opaque and a way to prop up corrupt regimes. We wanted to see if Guyana's development is being driven by corruption, so we switched to hidden cameras. I'm going to film

undercover

with my Chinese friend who doesn't want to appear on camera for obvious reasons. He will pose as a successful Chinese

business

man. I'll pretend to be his secretary and we'll try. To find out how the Chinese are doing

business

with the Miami government, my colleague and I, who we'll call Mr.

Chan, introduced ourselves as investors looking to get involved in mining, logging and construction, spending weeks working our way up the business circles of elite and captured conversations you normally wouldn't have heard, we are eventually welcomed to a private country retreat where we met influential businessmen, including a timber exporter who offered us advice on how to best work with the foreign system we need on our side is Vice President Barad Jagdayo, arguably the country's most powerful politician, spent 12 years as president and still carries enormous political weight outside Guyana. He has been heralded as a climate hero who promises to keep his country green even as he drills for oil.

We are told that the person who can catch us. In the room with him is a man called his jurong, the man is a long-time resident of Guyana, he is one of the country's largest landowners in the logging and mining sector, and also has interests in the fuel industry, but he was still eager to meet with new investors he boasted about. his influence with the vice president who owns the house Sue lives in and who Su refers to as her boss and Sue says he can help us in Guyana for the right price. Foreign Sue is not the only person telling us that the service fees these middlemen charge are essentially bribes for big business.

This is a general manager of China's largest state-owned construction company who confirmed that companies use middlemen directly linked to the Chinese Communist Party who win many of Guyana Sky Works' largest government contracts for one of the largest states. They run organizations and the way they seem to do business here is also very under the table; It largely implies that the authorities in Beijing know exactly what is going on; The lawsuit then showed us evidence of its own involvement in multimillion-dollar deals. between the Guyana government and a large Chinese state corporation, including a contract for his work as an agent on a large highway project and letters sent by the government about the same hydroelectric plant we flew over in the rainforest for our deal, Mr.

Sue painted us a wide range of investment opportunities logging rights a stone quarry gold mining and the most promising land of all in a prime location where a hotel and casino could be built to cash in on the oil boom demand says money that we paid him under the guise of legitimate business will reach the vice president of Foreign Affairs before we can pay him and the vice president would need a way to bring large sums of money into the country. We told him that, like other companies, he does business with our capital is tied. In China and China has strict controls on sending money abroad, we would need an alternative solution, so there have been many indications throughout our time here that the way foreign companies normally bring money into the country is by through different money launderers that operate. here so we managed to contact a couple of those guys who say they can transfer large sums of money into the country and we will meet him now, this man told us that he works with a team to transfer huge sums of cash for both private clients and for companies controlled by the Chinese state.

He says he personally delivers cash directly to government officials. The way he does it is called flying money in Chinese. The money is placed in a bank account in China. The equivalent amount minus a considerable fee is charged in Guyana to circumvent taxes and border restrictions. Now that we have access to secured cash, we are moving forward with the deal as a final step. Sue took our colleague Mr Chan next door to meet the Vice President. Thank you very much for seeing us. I, yes, please have a seat. I avoided talking about details, but he told us how close he is to suing.

Do you understand our agreement in detail? I will not get involved in the business, but you will receive support soon. He is my friend, he receives all the support. we have to be clear about all the agreements sue deals with all the agreements I don't understand it I understand the thing is my thing is I'm in the government so I can evaluate from the government side that's all Sue intervened telling Mr. Chan that this was not the place to talk about bribery. Yes, give me time. I hope to see you again. Thank you thank you thank you.

Thank you so much. My personal benefit is not the only thing at stake here. China. The expansion in South America has raised alarm bells in the United States, which has long maintained political dominance in the region. China has an overall goal: to become the richest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world. That's not going to happen under my watch, Biden and G7 leaders recently pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in global infrastructure funding to directly counter China's Belt and Road. One fear is that generous Chinese funding comes with geopolitical conditions and last year that seemed to be true when Guyana made a political decision that many saw.

As a direct result of pressure from China, the island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own, announced that it was opening a trade office in Guyana. The United States applauded the move, but just hours later, Guyana withdrew one of our close trading partners from the agreement. Links to the Chinese embassy told us that the reason Guyana withdrew was because of Chinese funding. There is no possibility of Taiwan having an office there. It wasn't until months after our conversation that talks of a 1.5 billion loan appeared in the news, suggesting that our contact had inside knowledge about what happened when it came to my phone recently, he said he didn't remember ever saying this.

Vice President Jagdayo said no loan was made and China had never pressured them on Taiwan or any other issue, there was no funding from anyone. comes with political strengths a few months later we confronted the vice president on whether the massive influx of foreign investment is riddled with corruption and whether he himself has a role to play in that, you know, Ghana has attracted a lot of foreign investment recently, what is it? Guyana has to offer the opportunity to earn money, that is why people come here. That's what I'm going to say. Some of their largest infrastructure projects are being built by Chinese state-owned companies, given the contentious issues between the United States. and China, does it ever feel like Guyana is being used as a pawn?

You know, within these two global superpowers, I don't think we're that important of a player to have the arrogance to think that we're that important to both of them. parties to be users, I think we are just a small country trying to do the best for our people and this year Guyana fell two points on Transparency International's corruption perception index, which places it among the most corrupt in the region. do you accept that? Within this government and within this country there is a problem of corruption. First of all, I have a problem with the rates, but we also have real corruption in countries like ours.

This is like an index of blackness. The darker you are, the lower you are in the ranking. index, developed countries almost never enter this index and have more institutional corruption in my opinion, what happens within their government? Do you accept bribes? No I don't know, we have spoken to several Chinese businessmen in Guyana who have said that you accept vibes and they have said that in fact it is the only way to do business, yes well I can't comment on that, you can just sit there and make that up unless you say who the person is, I can't. comment on anonymous people okay, let's talk about specific people what is your relationship with mr sujurong su oh, so my relationship is nothing, he is a tenant in my house, yes, and he is a good friend of yours, yes, um, Yes, he is a friend of ours.

He claims that through his very close relationship with you he is able to make any deal right. I don't, I don't use middlemen like Sue to take money on his behalf so he can keep his hands clean. No, the answer is no, we met with a manager at a Chinese state corporation who confirmed that they use people like Demand to close these deals and that they pay them a consulting fee that essentially serves as a bribe to people like you. I mean, I don't know because, again, that's it. You're building everything on what you were known and what people told you.

Don't know. I can't comment on some anonymous manager now telling you something. I mean, these are these individuals. Why do you want to be an interesting country for business? Why do you think so? So many people are telling us one thing about you. You know, this is the way they're madedeals. You know, when journalists come from abroad, this is the kind of tattoo you always get. I want a leader from a developing country to look for her, so you'll have already done your part. Will you investigate? At least you know. No, no, definitely, I'm going to ask about all of this, but I can't, I can't reasonably comment, how can I?

He commented on these issues a few days after meeting with us. Jagdayo published our interview to the press apparently to get ahead of the avalanche of public reactions. The president of Guyana came to Jagdeh's defense. I heard that the journalist had certain special interests nor did the timber exporter. The Chinese state-owned companies mentioned in this article did not speak to nor did they respond to our questions, but in a statement the Chinese embassy called our reports false and said that all Chinese companies operating in Guyana follow local laws and international practices. The lawsuit also claimed that he had never said this and issued a statement saying that he had never acted on behalf of any government official or promised any business favors or rewards since our interview, the negotiations over the contract to build the hydroelectric power plant in the that the lawsuit said he was involved in brokering have stalled and the vice president now says he plans to take legal action against suing for what he told us I'm going to take repetitive action I'm going to sue him and I hope he throws him out looking I can't find him so far, but As soon as he finds him, this will happen, but others have called for Jagday himself to be investigated, the opposition believes that Vice President Jackmail should step down and resign to facilitate an impartial investigation and the people of Guyana still have questions about who can buy their country and why At what price can someone be making corrupt deals to give away our lands basically because we are not benefiting from it but we will not give up because we see that the system has been designed in such a way that it goes against what we know?

We are trying to do it, we will continue to fight for our lands, it is not for us now, but we have to think about our children, our grandchildren, those who will come after us. I'm Michael Lehrman, editor-in-chief of the all-too-often traditional Vice News. The media avoids the real stories and experiences of those living in global conflicts, not tainted news. Our reporters are on the ground fearlessly covering the human stories that shape our world. You and millions of others can continue reading, watching and listening to news on devices for free. but we hope you will consider making a one-time or ongoing contribution of any size.