Читать книгу Multiracism - Alastair Bonnett - Страница 11

I’ve walked into a mini-market in the Tongan capital, Nuku-alofa. A young Chinese woman staffs the till, whilst Tongan employees and their friends sit some distance away, chatting on the store’s porch but clearly annoyed and agitated; a situation replicated in many of the shops I have been into. The warm, tropical air bristles with animosity. I ask the woman at the till how she likes Tonga. She smiles, evidently surprised to be spoken to: ‘I want to go home; I miss my town’, she tells me, adding with a poignant certainty ‘I am lonely’. Over recent decades, a lot of businesses in Tonga have been bought by Chinese entrepreneurs. Indeed, I’ve been told that that there are no Tongan-owned stores left across the whole archipelago. This low-lying nation’s many challenges – which include sea-level rise, cyclones, emigration, and poverty – appear to have been displaced onto an enmity towards the newcomers. In 2006, rioters destroyed most of the capital’s central business district, targeting Chinese businesses. Similar stories can be found across many Pacific nations. Whilst Chinese money is courted by the Tongan elite (the Chinese bring capital and disaster relief, and have built roads and new port facilities), many ordinary people talk openly about wanting the Chinese gone.