This work is carried out by hand by employees of the Chinese concessionary companies, who earn a basic monthly salary of between US$60 and $240 as well as a small bonus based on productivity.12 The majority of them are young men, physically tough and with a clinical eye for detecting jade. “Miners work in life-threatening conditions without protection,” stated the report Blood Jade in 2008.13 Meanwhile, a steady stream of lorries carry the excavated earth spoil outside the concessions. This soil accumulates, ton by ton, forming enormous artificial mountains. For the residents of Hpakant who are not employed in the mines, the new mountain forms are at once a possible lifeline and a death trap. Winding their way on motorbikes through the dense traffic of heavy vehicles and the bosses’ luxury cars, they head to the stone and earth dumping sites with no tools other than a hammer, a torch and their own hands. They spend endless hours searching for leftover pieces of jade which might have escaped the eyes of the companies’ workers, while middlemen hover around in case of a find.
Kyaw Min Tun is one of the yemase, as these stone collectors are known in the local language. He spends hours scrabbling around among the rubble, climbing up and down the mountains day and night, come rain or shine, vying for the best spaces with the other hundreds or even thousands of aggressive jade pickers like himself. Their lives are often at risk: every now and again, landslides bury people alive, while floods regularly sweep away everything in their path.14 Only very occasionally will a stroke of luck reward them with a precious green translucent stone like the one Kyaw Min Tun shows us when we meet him in Myitkyina. “I can sell this for 1,000 dollars,” he assures us, naming the market price for a piece of jade the size of a mobile phone. Kyaw Min Tun, who is forty-two years old and lives in Hpakant, has dedicated half his life to this profession. Two decades ago, he points out, the extraction of jade was a local business, providing a fundamental means of support to the local people. Back then, the small scale of the industry and the lack of technology meant that the impact on the environment was limited.
However, everything changed with the arrival of the new concessions system, which helped to forge the alliance between the Burmese generals and the Chinese businessmen. This led to the arbitrary confiscation of thousands of people’s land, forcing them to move. The local people were left with nothing but crumbs. “The Chinese won all of the auctions. They bribed the civil servants because they could afford to pay much more than the local businessmen,” Kyaw Min Tun recalls. The local residents lament the fact that—among so much greed—they were given no share of the riches. “The mountains have disappeared. It’s all flat now. None of the best-quality imperial jade is left anymore. We’ve lost everything and we’re still poor.” Since the diggers have been working day and night on an enormous scale for over a decade, the reserves of the best jade in the world are diminishing at an unstoppable pace. The total depletion of the gem is now just around the corner. “I am quite sure that in less than ten years all this activity will have to stop. There will be nothing left,” he predicts. “Agriculture will be the only means of survival left to us.” All these years of exploitation have not even served to develop a jade processing industry in the region to create added value and local jobs. All of the processing is currently carried out in China.
While this colossal process of exploitation with overtones of institutionalized plundering continues,15 Hpakant is also living through an intense social drama. Faced with a terrible job market and severe social problems, as well as fierce competition between the yemase themselves, the majority of the 100,000 yemase working in Hpakant earn the bare minimum needed to survive. “It’s a very tough job. Many yemase are addicted to heroin. The majority of young miners are hooked on drugs,” Kyaw Min Tun assures us. At six dollars a dose, opium boosts levels of concentration to help detect jade, increases physical resistance and relieves pain. The cheap alternative is to inject heroin directly into the blood, at just two dollars a fix. As Hpakant borders on the “Golden Triangle,” where the cultivation of opium is widespread, access to the white or brown powder is both easy and affordable. Unsurprisingly, opium is very closely linked to jade culture.16
For Myo Hlaing, thirty-six years old and a father of three, it took just two weeks for him to become addicted. That was eight years ago. “It’s impossible to do this job without heroin,” he tells us. Dark skinned and weighing barely 48 kilos as a result of the poison that is killing him a little more every day, he wears the traditional Burmese sarong, or longyi, wrapped around his waist. He speaks slowly but clearly as he explains that he and his friends collect jade, drink beer and inject themselves in groups. “At least fifteen of my friends are addicts. Another five died from overdoses,” he tells us.
Inside the Chinese mines it seems that things are not so different. Ye Myint Oo became addicted to heroin several years ago while he was working for the Chinese mining company Shwe Gaung Gaung. He is still hooked today. “The companies couldn’t care less who takes what. The only thing they care about is increasing production. It’s easy for anyone to get hold of the drug,” he insists. A group made up of Christian priests working in the heart of Kachin and an NGO volunteer, who agreed to talk to us on condition that they would remain anonymous, also confirm that the drug has spread like wildfire through the Chinese gold and jade mines.17 A report by Kachin News Group18 goes even further, directly linking the Chinese companies to the drug trade in the area: “All opium sold in Hpakant is distributed by only two Chinese companies who are also involved in [jade] mining,” it states.19
While there are no official statistics on the subject, there are many indications of the enormous scale of the social catastrophe that has struck Hpakant. In 2008, a local priest stated that over 100,000 young people under the age of forty had died in Kachin between 1997 and 2007 as a direct consequence of the drug. In 2009, over 2.5 million syringes were distributed in Hpakant alone.20 The aforementioned activist working in the area assured us that over 100,000 people are affected by drug addiction in the home of jade. Out of these, between 50 and 75 percent are also infected with HIV. Death is spread, shot by shot, through used syringes or an uncontrollable prostitution industry that takes place in makeshift karaoke bars and bamboo dens especially made for the purpose. This trade is carried out by young people such as Myo Mi Mi, a young woman brought up in extreme poverty who got hooked on heroin as a teenager and who now, at barely twenty years of age, plays a daily game of Russian roulette with AIDS in exchange for little more than a few dollars a time. The combination is lethal: an effective killing machine.
THE BEST IMPERIAL JADE ENTERS THE ILLEGAL CIRCUIT
Days after meeting Xiang on the train to Myitkyina, we see him again in the city’s central Pan Tsun hotel, where he is putting together the final preparations for his journey towards the great opportunities in Hpakant. He is standing with his calculator in hand and several wads of American dollars spread out on the counter of the hotel reception in front of him, enough to grease several palms over the course of his journey. To start with, he needs $1,500 just to get to Hpakant. After that, it will cost several thousand more to ease his merchandise’s journey across the border to Shanghai. With a 30 percent tax on products it is impossible to do business legally, he assures us, completely unabashed. Therefore, many people like him opt instead for the contraband route, taking advantage of the fact that the border is less than 200 kilometers away and the police force’s meager salaries mean officers can easily be bought.
When he first started out, Xiang recalls, he used to travel in person on board the lorry to China. He used to pay between 20,000 and 30,000 yuan at every control point, the equivalent of between 2,000 and 3,000 euros, and he knew exactly which soldiers would be on guard at any particular moment. However, his highly organized system still was not always enough to protect him from nasty shocks, such as one occasion when he found himself surrounded by soldiers pointing their guns in his face. In the Wild West, Xiang knew he was risking his money, his freedom or even his life with every cont
raband operation he carried out. Nowadays, after having invested an unrevealed amount of money over the years, he has what he calls a “secure channel”; in other words, contacts on his payroll throughout the route who, whether they are police officers, soldiers or customs officials, allow him to get the jade stones out of the country without any trouble or questions. Many of the best-quality gems from Hpakant enter directly into the illegal business, the traders assure us.
Although in theory jadeite should leave the country via the auction houses in Naypyidaw,21 in fact a high proportion enters China along contraband routes such as the one that Xiang has managed to forge over the years.22 At the auctions in the Burmese capital—just as at others in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing—the traders are not in the least bit interested in the suffering of the people living in jade extraction areas. Once the raw material leaves the mine and arrives in China, it rises steadily in value until it is finally transformed into a luxury Asian product sold on Nathan Road, the most prestigious shopping street in Kowloon, Hong Kong. There, luxury jade jewelry is proudly displayed in the shop windows of one of the fifteen jewelry stores belonging to Chow Tai Fook—the most important retail player in the sector—which are scattered over just a handful of blocks. On seeing a necklace containing thirty-seven pieces of jade in a shop window with a price tag of HK$13.7 million, or over 1.2 million euros, it is impossible not to think of the suffering, poverty, drugs and death witnessed on a daily basis in Hpakant. With all that money, how many families could be given a decent life?
With such high prices for the end products, rather than focusing on the processing aspect the traders and middlemen concentrate their efforts on coming up with the jadeite stones that will make them rich—if they don’t ruin them, that is. “The jade industry is very risky. It’s like going to the casino,” warns Catherine Chan Sin Hung, president of the Jade Manufacturers Association of Hong Kong. This is not only due to the scarcity of jadeite and the naturally speculative character of Chinese investments. It is also a consequence of the lack of investment options in China and the great amount of money in circulation there, driving prices through the roof. This situation is not helped by the fact that the whole business is based on chance. In the auctions, for example, buyers make their bids after making a cut in the rocks so that they can use their experience to get some idea of the quality of the raw material inside. However, they will not know the true value of what they have bought until they can open the rock completely. “If you’re lucky enough, you can earn a lot of money. The price can easily jump up to a hundred times,” Chan assures us. However, the failures are also well known. It is not for nothing that jade is known in China as the “risk stone.”23
It is therefore not surprising that the market is inundated with low-quality jade sold as imperial jade, a type of fraud that can only be detected using technology. “If the jadeite turns out to be regular jade treated chemically with resins, the price can fall to less than half its original value, even down to just 10 percent of that value,” explains a gem expert who is analyzing a jade and diamond bracelet valued at 1 million euros that has just been sold at the International Festival of Jewelry in Hong Kong. If the imperial jade piece is also antique, the price can skyrocket. A jade piece of this kind, 80 centimeters wide and 80 kilos in weight, which dated back to the time of Emperor Qianlong in the 1700s and included an engraving of a classical thirteenth-century painting that took over twenty years to carve, gave the staff of Christie’s quite a few headaches when it came to valuation. Based on the fact that the item was sold in 1945 for 80,000 pieces of silver, they settled on a pre-sale price of between 500,000 and 800,000 euros. The piece was finally sold to a Chinese collector for 5.14 million euros.
Following the trail of the jade across the world, from Hpakant to the jewelry stores of Nathan Road in Hong Kong, Wangfujing in Beijing and Nanjing Road in Shanghai, helps to uncover the decisive role played by China in Kachin State. It demonstrates that China plays a part in the excesses and injustices taking place in the region; in the violation of human rights and the miserable working conditions; in the unequal distribution of wealth and the severe impact on the environment. But that is not all. It also illustrates the nature of the marriage of convenience between the two countries.24 Faced with the difficulties caused by international sanctions, fully in place until mid-2012, when the Obama administration eased some of the restrictions,25 Burma has offered itself up to its hungry neighbor, using the lure of its abundant natural resources and a legal environment that is typical of dictatorships. China has not let this opportunity pass it by, as can also be seen from its significant geopolitical and energy interests in the area.26 In exchange for privileged access to Burma’s extractive industry, hydroelectric contracts and the Indian Ocean, Beijing has offered Rangoon diplomatic security, investments and arms at a time when the West tried to isolate the regime. Although Burma has other options available to it, such as partnerships with India, Thailand or Singapore, the alliance with China has provided a valuable lifeline to help the regime maintain power and, consequently, to continue with decades of abuse. Although this partnership is undoubtedly motivated more by self-interest than friendship, it effectively manages to fuel and perpetuate the status quo under the pretext of “no interference” and “peaceful coexistence,” two of the guiding principles of Chinese foreign policy.
In fact, this economic penetration has spread throughout the region. “South of the clouds”27 China is deploying all its commercial power to make Southeast Asia the spearhead for its economic expansion. It is developing infrastructure, investing here, there and everywhere and stocking up on raw materials in the region. However, this situation is not restricted to Southeast Asia. Thousands of kilometers away, China is enthusiastically unfolding its tentacles in an iron-rich desert on the Pacific coast of Peru. Unfortunately for the local people, the consequences there are just as devastating.
MARCONA, THE HIJACKED MINING CONCESSION
After a ten-hour, 500-kilometer journey from Lima, the car reaches the crest of a hill and the mining community of San Juan de Marcona finally comes into view. We drive down towards the town along a deserted black asphalt road. A gusty wind is blowing and we can taste the desert dryness in our mouths as we look out at a sandy, ocher, almost lunar landscape that ends at a distant cliff signaling the edge of the Pacific Ocean. In the distance we can see a dust cloud created by heavy vehicles driving in and out of the mining facilities. There is also a dirt runway for the occasional use of airplanes chartered by the Chinese company Shougang Hierro Peru. One by one, the signs lining the road make it clear who is in charge in this unwelcoming place: “Private concession. Shougang Hierro Peru.” Here, the Chinese state-owned mining company is literally lord and master of all.
San Juan de Marcona is one of those places where it seems a miracle that anybody can live at all. Everything is silent and there are hardly any vehicles moving along the town’s central avenue with its handful of cheap restaurants and shops selling only the most basic necessities. Rows of low houses made of gray concrete—some of them painted in garish colors—are scattered along the main streets, providing modest dwellings for the miners and their families. Cracked paintwork and broken staircases are commonplace, as are wires stretching from building to building and clothes hanging in doorways. The streets are full of rubbish, which is gathered in piles on sandy street corners. There are no parks, trees or any green areas at all.
As well as harboring Peru’s only active iron mine, the small town of San Juan de Marcona is also notorious for the often violent conflicts which regularly break out between its inhabitants and the Chinese state-owned company Shougang. The company is China’s sixth biggest iron and steel producer and the current owner of the concession, after having bought the state-owned Peruvian company which previously mined the area in 1992.28 Despite the rich dividends yielded by its investment,29 two decades later Shougang has still not resolved its differences with the small population of people whose welfare and fut
ure depend entirely on the company. “In 1992 we thought that the Chinese were going to make things better,” comments Agustín Purizaca, a technical consultant and adviser to Marcona’s mayor. However, those hopes were soon dashed, and then the trouble began. “They’ve tried to put up a Chinese arch in the town three times, and every time the people have knocked it down,” he recalls. “The only thing they understand is violence,” he concludes, summarizing the unsustainable nature of the situation.
The problems are caused by the very nature of the mining concession, which includes the entire town within the boundaries of its 670 square kilometers. Therefore, while on paper Shougang only owns the minerals contained in the area’s subsoil, it also acts as the owner, agent and administrator of the land and, by extension, of municipal services such as electricity, water and the drainage system. This legally dubious privilege, which is effectively an act of extraterritoriality, has been fraying tempers within the local community for the last two decades. The locals complain that the behavior of the company has had a serious impact on their daily lives; it is Shougang that decides how many hours of water or electricity are available to the community each day,30 while the company’s refusal to release land to allow the town to expand has stifled urban development. “Shougang objects to every single project that the town suggests. They want to take charge of everything under the pretext that they own the place,” Purizaca insists.
The residents of San Juan de Marcona have to live with the unpleasant sensation of being unwanted guests in their own homes. They feel like strangers in their own birthplace and marginalized in the mine where they have sacrificed their health, blood and souls. “It’s like our lives have been hijacked. We feel like we’re living in a Chinese colony,” Purizaca argues. The issue of accommodation is a prime example. As the town has mining camp status, Shougang provides its employees with basic accommodation in the lodgings built by the former American concessionary company in the 1960s and 1970s. However, if employees are fired or reach retirement age, they are immediately evicted from their homes. There is no reward for service to the company. Any type of construction is frowned on by the company. For instance, the residents even have to ask Shougang’s permission to build new niches in the small cemetery on the outskirts of the town in order to bury their dead. That is how Shougang repays a life’s worth of sacrifice.
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