{"id":29642,"date":"2022-06-17T16:04:37","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T14:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/?p=29642"},"modified":"2022-06-17T16:04:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T14:04:37","slug":"chinese-investment-in-smederevo-bor-and-zrenjanin-natural-and-human-resources-an-instrument-for-the-accumulation-of-capital-of-a-few-privileged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/chinese-investment-in-smederevo-bor-and-zrenjanin-natural-and-human-resources-an-instrument-for-the-accumulation-of-capital-of-a-few-privileged\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese investment in Smederevo, Bor and Zrenjanin: Natural and human resources an instrument for the accumulation of capital of a few privileged"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn the conditions of very shaky respect for the rule of law in this country, the consequences of various investment projects do not take into account the life, freedoms and security of our citizens.\u201d said BCSP Director Igor Bandovi\u0107 opening up the discussion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

BCSP Senior Researcher Maja Bjelo\u0161 presented research conducted in the three cities in order to grasp the effects of Chinese projects to human security, environment and human rights. She pointed out that the Serbian Government\u2019s lack of upholding the rule of law resulted in ignoring appeals, and no action taken in response to violations committed by the Chinese investors. \u00a0All these actions are ignored due to state economic interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatural and human resources are an instrument for the accumulation of capital of a few privileged people\u201d<\/strong> Bjelo\u0161 highlighted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The head of the Department of Environmental Protection at the Technical Faculty in Bor, Snezana \u0160erbula, said that in Bor and Smederevo, unlike in Zrenjanin, the problem of pollution is old due to the nature of production, that the air was never clean. However, since the Chinese companies took over the smelter and steel plant, the production skyrocketed, as well as the pollution. She highlighted that lack of care about the environment leads to high profit margins.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach degree of air and water purification means an additional investment for the company and a more expensive final product. If you want the biggest profit, then you go to a country where the least attention is paid to environmental protection and the rule of law\u201d, <\/strong>professor \u0160erbula.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Residents of Bor also pointed out they are unhappy with land grab for very low prices, even though Serbian law requires a fair market price to be paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey offered 1 Euro for a square meter of land which is similar to buying a bag of potatoes,\u201d Bor Resident Miodrag \u017divkovi\u0107 highlighted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Residents report that the local river has become heavily polluted with industrial sewage and the air tainted with noxious fumes. Copper mining produces deadly arsenic and there are well grounded fears of carcinogens in the air and water.<\/p>\n

Dragan Nedeljkovi\u0107 from the organization ProTok21 from Smederevo said that in that city, as well as in Bor, the prevailing feeling is that the laws of our state do not apply to investors. He said that Smederevo citizens have no insight into the pollution measurements, which was not the case in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201dSteel plant wants to be treated as a long-term project, which means that you have to invest in ecology, community and development. But everything seems to be short-term and serving for short-term profit-making and not thinking about what will happen to the environment and people in the next 10-15 years”, Nedeljkovi\u0107 said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A member of the board of directors of Zrenjanin Action (ZRAK), Miso \u017divanov, assessed that the people of Zrenjanin expect the opening of the tire factory in China’s Linglong with justified fear. “We are pessimistic, because we see in the examples of Bor and Smederevo that the activist struggle gives very poor results.<\/p>\n

“We hope that through unification we will achieve that our problems gain visibility at the regional and international level,” said \u017divanov.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Participants also discussed workers\u2019 treatment, which was put under spotlight in Zrenjanin. Local expressed concern that their community is beginning to resemble a \u201cforced labor camp\u201d with an influx of Chinese, Vietnamese, and other foreign workers laboring under unsafe and unlawful conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Vietnamese workers complained about harsh conditions in Zrenjanin, Linglong management retaliated by removing the workers. NGOs that questioned the operation were smeared as anti-Chinese racists and the Serbian government minimized the dispute\u201d Ivan \u017divkov of Gra\u0111anski preokret highlighted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supported by the International Republican Institute\u2019s Beacon Project. The views expressed during the event are solely those of the participants and do not reflect those of IRI.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy hosted a roundtable discussion on the emerging issues and challenges resulting from Chinese industrial development projects in Serbia. Residents of the three affected cities, journalists, experts in the field of environmental protection, human rights activists and representatives of the international community gathered to exchange views on the topic and agreed Chinese investors are responsible for negative effects, but also the Serbian government which has been turning a blind eye to different malpractices for the sake of economic interests. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8595],"tags":[11065,11069,11068,11067,10956,11066,10047],"vest_saopstenje":[9454],"coauthors":[164],"class_list":["post-29642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-security","tag-bor","tag-chinese-investments","tag-human-rights","tag-human-security","tag-rule-of-law","tag-smederevo","tag-zrenjanin","vest_saopstenje-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29645,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29642\/revisions\/29645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29642"},{"taxonomy":"vest_saopstenje","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vest_saopstenje?post=29642"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}