Chapter 604 -The Envious Neighbor
Regardless of how many White Papers the UA published alerting people of Celestial Trade’s danger to regional stability, the countries clearly didn’t take this warning seriously.
In the eyes of surrounding countries, Celestial Trade and Future Group were marvelous.
Why? There is a perfect example in New Guinea’s port!
At the end of 2016, the port was just a poor shanty town. Other than an uneconomical airport and a highway halfway built, the entire city’s economy was dead on the ground and supported by tourism and small amounts of lumber and ore export.
Malaysia’s Papua Province and port were only separated by a straight border, occupying the west side of Papua. This straight borderline simply separated the entire island of Papua into two worlds, one on one side and the other on the other side. The city of Jayapura always complained that the poor from New Guinea was stealing their jobs, dirtying their cities and drinking their water, yet this condescending sense of superiority gradually vanished by the arrival of Future Group.
The Malaysian shockingly discovered that port was growing at a visible speed! In just a period of four short months, the size of the city expanded by a fold. The almost deserted airport had five addition arrivals and departures. The packed port had to expand to seven berths to accommodate for the incoming cargos.
When the conditions permitted, compared to working in the neighboring country, New Guineans favored working in their country more. With the economy supported by mega steel plants, it dragged up the local economy and brought along a series of other industries.
Also similarly!
In February, the public Luer Automotive Corporation passed a decision from the board to invest 200 million USD to establish an electric vehicle plant in the region to officially enter the Asia market! Future Biology also moved the seaweed farm to the port to provide raw ingredients for the nutrient supply production line on Ange Land. The parts plant for the housework robot was also placed near the port.
Due to the shortage of population and land, Future Group started executing the strategy of shifting the high labor-intensive industry to developing countries at the beginning of 2017. And New Guinea with a weak government presence, vulnerable national defense, excessive labor, and resources, fortunately, became Jiang Chen’s target.
Without restriction from policies, Future Group was a hungry capital beast and took a giant bite off of New Guinea’s catch. 30% of the residents of port worked for Jiang Chen directly, and 50% of the population there either were supported directly or indirectly by Future Group. What’s more shocking, Future Group did everything in four short months.
To the massive conglomerate, even if the New Guinea government retained a cautious attitude, the local government won’t easily upset Jiang Chen because of the political order from the central authority. Jiang Chen’s sentence alone could make 50% of the population of the city lose their source of income. Without Future Group and Celestial Trade, how chaotic would the city be?
To some extent, Future Group was like an addictive drug to the local government. The officials with foresight obviously know that it would be detrimental if this continued, but even if they know, they could not break off the drug. Officials in any country must require achievements to be promoted, and Jiang Chen happened to control what they needed the most.
The New Guinea government did consider breaking up Future Group’s assets through anti-trust investigation. But just as the parliament started discussing this problem, protestors consisting of the original residents of the port with signs immediately appeared to protest about racism and unfair tax treatment and fought for independence…
New Guinea was scared.
They were not afraid of the protestors, but afraid that Papua would become the second MLL Island. Celestial Trade dared to set an example of another country provoked them.
And they did it in front of UA’s face without holding anything back!
No one mentioned the anti-trust investigation anymore. After a period of protesting, the protestors also lost interest and returned back to work at the steel plants.
Of course, it was just a story that happened in between.
Future Group provided hundreds of millions of USD in tax revenue for the local government. Just for the sake of foreign currency, the local government didn’t dare to offend Future Group. Or the protestors won’t be able to return to the plants and work peacefully; usually, they would have to be at least thrown in a detention center for at least a few days.
It was because of this foreign currency that the neighboring Malaysia became jealous.
They were not afraid of Future Group throwing a coup that overthrows their government since their force was not comparable to Country F’s third-hand product. Their air force was equipped with Russia’s MIG-28N and America’s F-18 Hornet! Although they were not seeking for war, their air force was only comparable by Singapore in the region.
Malaysia’s Finance Minister and Energy Minister visited Coro Island two times to meet with Zhang Yaping and Jiang Chen while providing positive signals to Future Group.
[We have a workforce, resources, and the most important basic infrastructure to support it all! Everything New Guinea has, the Papua Province on Papua Island has it, and we have more of it than them!]
With how direct his message is, he practically said “come invest here!”
But Jiang Chen didn’t respond directly to the two ministers’ warm invitation. He only vaguely stated if Celestial Trade and Future Group required expansion in business, they would consider the resource-rich Malaysia as a partner.
But after all the polite talk was done, Future Group did not react at all. The tensest was the local government of Papua province, seeing that the poor country beside them was rising. While people in Jayapura hated New Guinea’s poor for working in their cities when they can all go back to their hometown to work, however, when the restaurants and McDonalds throughout the city could not see a single New Guinean server, the citizens of Jayapura started to feel anxious.
The sudden shortage in labor force caused a visible drop in the quality of life of Jayapura people, and the booming economy started to slow down. With the extra labor force missing, would there be no unemployment rate in the city? It was obviously not the case.
While they lost their extra labor force, Jayapura lost the extra consumers. The drop in store sales and slowdown in company performance naturally led to a reduction in workforce. The more prosperous the city, the more it depended on the connections it had with the outside world.
As to the influence of port and the effect on the capital of Papua province Jayapura, it would be an indirect comparison to the rise of Shenzhen and the fall of Hong Kong, not to be discussed further here.
Finally, Malaysia who couldn’t sit around any longer sent delegation again.