Undercover In Guyana: Exposing Chinese Business in South America

[Music] so i've been driving for a while and this is just like a massive expanse of land that has been mined out and is still being mined you can see a lot of uh workers are still operating here most of these people are actually a local guyanese but they're more recently some chinese miners that have come [Music] guyana is one of the smallest countries in south america the largely undeveloped nation is rich with gold timber and other natural resources that have attracted foreign investment recently from china this science is [Music] [Music] china's growing presence in guyana is part of its increased investment in latin america and the caribbean last year china's investment and construction projects in the region neared 16 billion dollars a four-fold increase since 2005. in that time chinese state banks have also loaned over 130 billion dollars to governments in the region loans to often fund infrastructure projects run by chinese state-owned enterprises much of this investment comes through china's belt and road initiative an ambitious push to bring development funding and soft power influence around the globe [Music] 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 across the country mapping threats to indigenous territories so that's the road that leads to the hydro project site so this is where they're going to be building a hydroelectric plant and it's the chinese that are building this right yes the chinese are the ones who are doing it it's going to flood large swaths of lands the biodiversity that lives in this area will die indigenous peoples we hunt and we fish in this area i mean building a hydrodam will decimate that [Music] guyana's largely intact rainforest operates as a crucial carbon sink capturing more carbon dioxide than the nation emits keeping it intact is crucial not just for the tribes who live here but also for alleviating the effects of climate change around the world mcgowan brought us to the village of morowa where members of the patamona tribe are fighting to get legal recognition of their lands we want a land title so that not any company could come in and say oh this is our black or this because it belongs to us we the people the first people of this country it belongs to us not for a company from china not from america companies are staking claims including a chinese timber operation and license holders for mining gold on my gps here i can see the mining concessions around moreover yeah oh wow so we're actually in the middle of a lot of we're surrounded by mining concessions here does that mean at some point there will be mining happening yes there will be at some point is it not inevitable that as guyana's opening up this way of life and indigenous peoples communities are going to change yes things are changing the world is moving on but we must determine that rate of change guyana is changing faster than mcgarrell would like a huge discovery of oil has transformed guyana's economy into one of the fastest growing in the world china is poised to cash in not just from its 25 stake in oil reserves but by funding the roads hotels and other infrastructure needed to fuel that growth but there are concerns that china with its outsized influence could unfairly benefit from the country's rapid ascent leaving guyanese citizens behind chinese infrastructure spending in other developing nations has been criticized as opaque and a way of propping up corrupt regimes we wanted to see if guyana's development is being fueled by corruption so we switched to hidden cameras so i'm going to be filming undercover with my chinese friend who does not want to go on camera for obvious reasons he's going to be posing as a successful chinese business person i'm going to be posing as his secretary and we're going to be trying to uncover how the chinese are doing business with the miami's government me and my colleague who we'll call mr chan presented ourselves as investors looking to get involved in mining logging and construction [Music] we spent weeks working our way into elite business circles and captured conversations we wouldn't normally have heard eventually we're welcome to a private country retreat where we met influential business people including one timber exporter who offered us advice on how to best work the system foreign we need on our side is vice president barad jagdayo arguably the most powerful politician in the country he spent 12 years as president and still pulls huge political weight outside guyana he's been heralded as a climate hero promising to keep his country green even as it drills for oil we're told that the person who can get us in the room with him is a man named su jurong mr is a long time guyana resident he's one of the country's biggest land holders in timber and mining with stakes in the fuel industry as well but he was still eager to meet with new investors [Music] bragged about his influence with the vice president who owns the house sue lives in and whom su refers to as his boss and sue says he can help us in guyana for the right price foreign sue's not the only person to tell us that the service fees these middlemen take are essentially bribes for big deals [Music] this is a general manager of china's largest state-run construction firm who confirmed that companies use middlemen [Music] [Music] linked directly to the chinese communist party who win a lot of guyana's largest government contracts sky works for one of the biggest state-run organizations and the way that they're seeming to do business here is also very much under the table it does imply very much that the beijing authorities know exactly what's going on [Music] later sue showed us evidence of his own involvement in multi-million dollar deals between guyana's government and a large chinese state-run corporation including a contract for his work as an agent on a big road project and letters sent from the government about the same hydro power plant we flew over in the rain forest for our deal mr sue painted us a wide range of investment opportunities logging rights a stone quarry gold mining and the most promising of all land in a prime location where a hotel and casino could be built to cash in on the oil boom sue says the money we pay him under the guise of legitimate business will actually make it to the vice president [Music] foreign before we could pay su and the vice president we would need a way to get large sums of money into the country we told sue that like other companies he does business with our capital is tied up in china and china has strict controls over sending money abroad we'd need a workaround so there's been a lot of hints throughout our time here that the way that foreign companies are normally getting money into the country is through um different money launderers that operate here so we've managed to get hold of a couple of those guys who say that they are able to transfer huge sums of money into the country um and we're gonna meet with him now this man told us he works with a team to transfer huge sums of cash both for private clients and chinese state-controlled companies he says he's personally delivered cash directly to government officials the way he does this is called flying money in chinese money is placed in a bank account in china the equivalent amount minus a hefty fee is taken out in guyana getting around taxes and border restrictions now with our access to cash secured we moved forward with the deal as a final step sue took our colleague mr chan next door to meet the vice president himself thank you so much for seeing me yeah please have a seat jack doe avoided talking specifics but told us how close he is to sue do you understand our deal in detail i'm not getting involved in business but you will get the support soon is my friend he gets all the support we have to be clear about all the agreements sue deals with all the agreements i don't i don't i understand i understand the thing is that my um thing is that i am in government so i can i assess from government side that's it sue interjected telling mr chan this wasn't the place to talk about the bribe yeah give me time i hope i can see you again thank you thank you thank you thank you so much [Applause] my [Music] personal profit isn't the only thing at stake here china's expansion in south america has set off alarms in the us which has long held political dominance in the region china has an overall goal become the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world that's not going to happen on my watch biden and g7 leaders recently pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in global infrastructure funding a direct counter to china's belt and road one fear is that generous chinese funding comes with geopolitical strings attached and last year that seemed to ring true when guyana made a policy decision that many saw as a direct result of pressure from china the island of taiwan which china claims as its own announced it was opening a trade office in guyana the u.s applauded the move but only hours later guyana pulled out of the agreement one of our business associates who had close ties with the chinese embassy told us that the reason guyana pulled out was because of chinese funding there's no possibility for taiwan to have any office in there it wasn't until months after our conversation that talk of a 1.5 billion loan made the news suggesting that our contact did have inside knowledge about what went down when reached my phone recently he said he didn't remember ever saying this vice president jagdayo said no loan was made and that china had never pressured them over taiwan or any other issue no financing from anybody comes with political strengths a few months later we confronted the vice president about whether the massive influx in foreign investment is plagued by corruption and if he himself has a part to play in that you know ghana has attracted a lot of foreign investment recently what is it that guyana has to offer the opportunity to make money that is why people are coming here so that's what i'm going to say some of the biggest infrastructure projects you have are being built by chinese state-run companies given the contentious issues between the us and china does it ever feel like guyana is being used as a pawn with it you know within these two global superpowers i don't think we're such a big player to have the arrogance to think that we're so important to the two parties to be users upon i think we're just a small country trying to do the best for our people and this year guyana dropped two points on the transparency international's corruption perception index which puts it among the most corrupt in the region do you accept that within this government and within this country there is a problem with corruption first of all i have a problem with the indices but we do have real corruption in countries like ours too this is like a blackness index the darker you are the lower you are on the index the developed countries hardly ever get on this index and they have more institutional corruption in my view what about within your government do you accept bribes no i don't you know we've spoken to a number of chinese business people in guyana who said that you do accept vibes and they have said that in fact it's the only way to get business done yeah well i i can't comment on that you can you can just sit there and fabricate that unless you say who the person is i can't comment on anonymous people okay well let's talk about specific individuals what is your relationship with mr sujurong su oh so my relationship nothing he is he's a tenant in my place yeah and he's a good friend of yours yes um yes yes he is a friend of ours he claims that through his very close relationship with you that he's able to get any deal done well i don't i don't do you use middlemen like sue in order to take money on on your behalf so that you can keep your hands clean no the answer is no we met with a manager from a chinese state-run corporation who confirmed that they use individuals like sue in order to get these deals done and that they pay them a consulting fee which essentially serves as a bribe to individuals like you i mean i don't know because again that's all you're building everything on what you were met and what people told you i 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 business interesting countries why do you think yes so many people are telling us one thing about you know this is the way that deals get done you know when the reporters come from abroad this is their tattoo kind of thing you always want to make a developing country leader look her up so you've done your your bit will you investigate at least you know no no definitely i'm gonna ask about all of this but i can't i can't comment reasonably how can i comment on these these issues a few days after meeting with us jagdayo released our interview to the press seemingly to get ahead of the onslaught of public reactions guyana's president lept to jagdeh's defense i heard that the reporter had certain special interests neither the timber exporter we spoke to nor the chinese state-run firms mentioned in this piece responded to our questions but in a statement the chinese embassy called our reporting false and said all chinese companies operating in guyana follow local laws and international practices sue also claimed he'd never said this and released a statement saying that he'd never acted on behalf of any government official or promised any favor or business related reward [Music] since our interview negotiations over the contract to build the hydroelectric power plant which sue said he was involved in brokering have stalled and the vice president now says he plans to take legal action against sue for what he told us i'm going to take repetitional action i'm gonna i'm going to sue it and i'm looking to him to throw him out looking for him can't find him so far but as soon as i find him this will happen but others have called for jagday himself to be investigated the opposition believes that vp jackmail should do the descenting and resign to facilitate an unbiased investigation and the people of guyana they're still left with questions about who gets to buy their country and for what price somebody may be making corrupt deals to give away our lands basically because we're not benefiting from it but we will not give up because we see that the the system has been designed in such a way that it goes against you know what we're trying to do we will continue to struggle for our lands it is not for us now but we have to think within our children our grandchildren those who come after us [Music] i'm michael lehrman editor-in-chief of vice news too often traditional news outlets shy away from the real stories and experiences of those living through global conflicts not vice news our reporters are on the ground fearlessly covering the human stories that shape our world you and millions of others can continue to read watch and listen device news for free but we hope you'll consider making a one-time or ongoing contribution of any size advice.com contribute every contribution no matter how big or small helps support the journalism vice news brings to you every day thank you

Channel: VICE News

Views: 2,283,353

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2020, chinese investment, chinese african business, guyana news, guyana corruption, china corruption, chinesee belt, chinese belt and road initiative, china belt and road initiative documentary, china in south america, undercover doc, undercover vice documentary, undercover vice

Id: sOOFSJqBYTY

Length: 24min 36sec (1476 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 07 2022

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[u/dingjima]

Skip to 20:06 for a good laugh

[u/r4b8z1]

This is just the reality of the BRI.

[u/djscoox]

That's fucked up. I hope they don't build the damn.