Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
[client name deleted]:
QUESTION: Do you think the deportation of a few westerners ‐‐ teachers and the like
‐‐ is necessary as back up against a claim of bias against the Chinese? Especially in
the lead up to the Congress?
ANSWER: No, the deportation of foreigners, especially Africans, is unrelated. There is
concern about the involvement of Africans in drugs, prostitution and generally being
in Vietnam without papers. I am told some Africans have burnt their identity cards in
order to make it difficult for the Vietnamese authorities to take action. In several
cases regarding Chinese I was told subsequent arrangement were made to get them
papers so they could remain.
QUESTION: Do you believe the rest will be ignored, possibly subject to some low‐
level graft at most?
ANSWER: The Vietnamese love to catch foreigners who have made technical or
procedural errors. In such cases the book is closed. The foreigner has no recourse
other than to pay a fine and bribe or face the consequences. The real question is one
of capacity. When the political heat rises then action is taken. But after matters die
down things will return to normal because Vietnam doesn’t have the capacity to
track down and expel those who stay in Vietnam illegally>
QUESTION: Gavin Greenwood mentioned that at other times the Chinese might
almost have been welcome as a way to shore up against a 'possibly destabilising'
move south by large numbers of northern workers. What do you think? Possibly
these workers are something of a stalking horse? According to a report I read in local
news today there are some 5OOO illegals Vietnamese workers in Hungary alone. The
ratio here is not as high.
ANSWER: I do not think this is a viable explanation. I can find little evidence for a
large scale scale migration south by northerners. And I doubt that large numbers of
Chinese would have been welcome in any case.
Vietnam has a relatively large scale guest workers program to send workers abroad.
But there are large numbers of illegal Vietnamese abroad especially in formerly
socialist countries. When communism collapsed the Vietnamese remained and have
used their networks to slip around Europe.
2
QUESTION: You mentioned bauxite. It's confirmed that the mine is staffing Chinese
not Vietnamese?
ANSWER: My understanding is that Chinese labourers without valid permits have
had to leave but then have returned with papers. But pressure is on to hire
Vietnamese workers.
QUESTION: As for the rest of the workers in and around HCMC ‐‐ would you say they
are being imported by Chinese companies or coming on their own in search of better
money? What is the advantage for a Chinese company to employ these people over
locals?
ANSWER: Chinese companies prefer Chinese because they can control them better.
An illegal Chinese worker is less likely to complain than a Vietnamese worker.
Language and regional connections among the workers facilitates control and
exploitation by Chinese managers.
But pull factors are also evident. Illegal Chinese are migrating all over Southeast Asia,
including Vietnam, for better jobs.