No Chinese Spoken Here!

Capt. Wu Hong under arrest. (Photo: El Tiempo)

Colombia aspires to be a plugged-in, globalized nation, and arguably its most globalized city should be the port and tourist magnet of Cartagena.

So, why in the world, can't that regional capital of a million people find a Chinese-language translator?

A few days ago, Cartagena port officials discovered that a Chinese ship bound for Cuba carried not only the oil pipes declared on its manifest, but also had hidden 100 tons of gunpowder, ammunition for heavy artillery and more than two million detonators.

The captain, Wu Hong, was duly arrested - but authorities found they could not arraign him because they had no Chinese-Spanish interpreter. A search of Chinese restaurants and shops produced no volunteers, perhaps because the people feared involvement in an illegal enterprise. Finally, a student from China was located and presented himself in court. However, when officials asked him for his cedula, the young man "scratched his head and said that he'd left it at home," El Tiempo reports. The youth departed and has not been heard from since.

Crates of contraband arms. (Photo: El Tiempo) 

Cuba's trafficking of war material is bizarre, unethical and ugly. The island nation has no borders and nor apparent enemies, particularly now that it's making friends with the United States. (And if the U.S. did invade - in violation of treaty commitments - no amount of artillery would save Havana from the planet's only superpower, anyway.) The arms cache is particularly worrisome in light of the discovery in Panama last July of weapons hidden on a Cuban ship bound for North Korea, a totalitarian dictatorship which regularly threatens to attack South Korea.

Ironically, Cuba is hosting the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas.

But back to Cartagena's embarrassing lack of a Chinese interpreter. I needn't observe that China is the world's most populous nation, the world's second-largest economy and a huge investor in Latin America. It's also a great potential source of tourists.

Are there no students who did semesters in Chinese high schools or universities? No businesspeople who travel to China? No Chinese immigrants who've learned Spanish? No Chinese language scholars?

Cartagena's lack of Chinese interpreters is handicapping prosecution of this ship captain. But it surely throws much more of a wrench into the region's economy.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombian Christmas: Made in China

A traditional toys fair in Bogotá suggest, well, traditional toys, probably made right here in Colombia.

But the 'Traditional Toys Fair' going on these days on Calle 26 instead features games which look suspiciously like they're made in China.

What did someone say about what happens to a culture which forgets its past, its culture?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colonialism of a Different Color?

Made in Colombia? Or just sucked out of
Colombia's earth? Colombia's exports to the
U.S. and China are overwhelmingly
raw materials.

Leftist writers such as Eduardo Galeano have long denounced the United States and European nations for supposedly practicing a kind of economic colonialism: Buying raw materials cheap from poor nations, transforming them into manufactured goods and selling them back to those poor countries for many times their original price.

Decide for yourself whether Galeano and Co. are correct - (but only after also reading the Vargas Llosa family's take on the issue).

Now, however, Galeano should aim his rhetoric east, where China is repeating the Western nations' 'exploitative' methods.

More than 90% of Colombia's
exports to China are petrochemicals.

Today's El Tiempo celebrates that Colombian exports to China have boomed - and are now about half of what Colombia exports to the United States. While that means lots of money for Colombia, the nature of those exports removes the sheen: 92.5% of Colombia's exports to China consist of petroleum and its derivatives. On the other other, only 0.0342% of Colombia's exports to China are manufactured goods. And Colombia's manufactured exports to China have actually dropped by 16% over the past two years.

From China, Colombia buys
manufactured goods like cellphones.

Colombia's export mix to the U.S. isn't much healthier: 61% of those were petroleum and derivatives, and only 9.5% manufactured goods. And those statistics look great compared to 2012 because Colombia's petrochemical exports to the U.S. have plummeted recently as a result of the U.S. fracking boom.

And what does China export to Colombia? Think expensive, manufactured goods such as cars, TVs, laptops, clothing, shoes and even the traditional Colombian sombrero volteao.

In the mid-2000s, a report from Sergio Arboleda University in Bogotá warned that Colombia's "exports are concentrated in products of little added value." Since then, nothing has changed, as a 2012 paper by the Inter-American Dialogue pointed out: "trade with China remains unbalanced and overwhelmingly focused on commodities."

There are few examples of countries anywhere in the world which have built healthy economies by exporting raw materials, but many examples of nations which have destroyed their environments and fed corruption by relying on such exports.

Will Colombia somehow, magically be different? Let's hope so, since that's the track it's headed down.

Colombian exports to China: Raw materials.

Colombian exports to China consist almost completely of raw materials. (Source: Cepal)

Colombia has a large and growing trade deficit with China.

Colombian imports much more from China (dark blue) than it exports to China (light blue).  (Source: Cepal)

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Shoemakers' Protest

'No more Chinese shoes,' marchers demand.

A cross on Plaza
Bolivar blames
contraband shoes..

Shoemakers marched down Ave. Septima today to protest against the importing of cheap Chinese-made shoes.

Many of Bogotá's shoemakers, concentrated in the low-income Restrepo neighborhood, are unsophisticated people with home workshops, who evidently can't compete with large scale Chinese factories - even tho the Chinese have to ship their shoes halfway across the globe.

It sure seems like a bad deal for Colombia to put a lot of skilled craftspeople out of work just to have slightly-cheaper shoes. And, without good jobs, who'll buy those shoes, anyway?

But the solution isn't subsidies, as the government has doled out to potato, coffee and other farmers. That's an unsustainable solution. Instead, perhaps they could provide these people training and business advice, tax incentives and other assistance.

A requiem for the Restrepo neighborhood, known for shoemaking and other leatherworks.

A protester carries a model bus. I have no idea why.

A shoemaking workshop in the Restrepo neighborhood.

A man in his home shoemaking workshop in the Restrepo neighborhood.

Colombian or Chinese imports? A shoe store in Bogotá

The sign says 'Mr. President, We Are Victims.' 'No to Chinese products.'

The protesters' banner says 'No to Asian products.'

Protesters march down Ave. Septima today.... 

...with riot police close behind.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombian Patrimony: Made in China

Boy scouts relaxing in sombrero vueltiao hats today in La Candelaria.

The news that one of Colombia's national symbols, the sombrero vueltiao, is being imported from China, should make Colombian officials reflect on the consequences of its rush to open itself to free trade.

The hat is traditionally made by residents of the Zenú indigenous territory San Andrés de Sotavento. As you can see here, it's a slow, laborious process.

This story in El Tiempo describes the poverty in which many of the traditional hat weavers live, how they may spend a week making a single hat, which they sell for 120,000 pesos, and how that hat gets resold for several times as much in the big city. The article also mentions that some Chinese businesses had approached a traditional hatmaker offering to pay him for his methods. The artisan says he refused - but the Chinese evidently learned, anyway.

That Chinese factories can make sombreros vueltiao faster and cheaper than traditional weavers is no surprise. And Colombia's proposed government measures, such as labeling hats' countries of origin, aren't likely to make much difference. Colombia's only real option for keeping the hat industry at home is to set up its own factories - altho that would put even more pressure on the traditional hatmakers. Even then, we can only hope that Colombian industry can outcompete the Chinese, even with the Chinese' extra costs of shipping their products halfway around the globe.

Sombrero vueltiao hats for sale near El Museo de Oro. I couldn't find a label saying where they'd been made.

This is yet another sad consequence of globalization, which makes meaningless merchandise out of a national symbol and takes away the livelihoods of traditional craftspeople.

A traditional weaver at work.

Perhaps, at least, the Chinese factories are weaving their sombreros out of Colombian-grown fibers. If so, they'll be following the sad pattern that's trapping Latin American countries in underdevelopment - exporting their raw materials to China, which manufactures them into retail products and sells them back to Latin America at a profit.

But don't blame the Chinese, tho, who are just working hard. Blame the countries which allow themselves to be treated this way.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

China Syndrome?

A cartoon in El Tiempo asks what the point is of a Free Trade Agreement with China when almost everything is already imported from China, anyway.

Colombia is courting China as a trade partner. Which makes one ask an obvious question: Why not leave bad enough alone?

Great Wall motors
advertises in Colombia. 

Colombia has a huge and growing deficit with China. That may shift - but in an unhealthy way, as Colombia exports more raw materials like metals, coal and oil to China and imports in return more manufactured goods, many of them cheap items of questionable quality. Colombia's streets are already getting clogged with cheap Chinese cars, which evidently have minimal environmental controls.

Juan Manel Santos with a Chinese leader in China.
The headline says that China wants Colombian oil and coal. 

Men play Chinese chess in a restaurant in central Bogotá.
Colombia has a tiny Chinese population, many of
whom come here as a way-station
to the United States. 

Colombia's National Association of Industries (Andi) opposes a possible free trade agreement with China, and for good reason. It would open wider the floodgates of cheap goods, making it impossible for Colombia's manufacturing sector to get on its feet. An article written about the year 2005 by a student of Jorge Arboleda University pointed out China's "overwhelming" competitiveness in the production of clothing and shoes. According to the article, Chinese-made pants were sold in Colombia for less than 500 pesos, while similar Colombian-made items cost more than 4,000 pesos. The textile industry then employed directly and indirectly some 800,000 Colombians, according to the article.

More cheap Chinese goods will further devastate Colombia's industry, turning Colombia into a nation of shopkeepers trying to sell Chinese products to Colombians without the incomes to purchase them.

Colombia's growing trade deficit with China. 

China also wants to build a huge petrochemical pipeline and railroad lines to ship Colombia's oil and coal across the sea to fuel Chinese factories. While this would create useful infrastructure for Colombia, it would also create a huge debt to the Asian powerhouse, and commit Colombia to continue digging up and shipping out its natural resources for a long, long time.

Home appliance stores in downtown Bogota. Many of there
products are from China, as is the truck parked on the street. 

How much space would such an arrangement permit for Colombia to protect its biodiversity? China, after all, hasn't been particularly careful at home, and they might expect an economic ally to apply the same standards.


(It's striking how similar China's relationship with the developing world is to that of the old colonial powers and the United States - but the same leftists who harshly criticized the developed capitalist world keep mum about China, because it's 'socialist.')

A Chinese-made SUV in Bogotá. The next instant,
the vehicle accelerated and coughed out a trail of
diesel smoke. 

But there's something even more troubling about buddying up to China. China has demonstrated that an authoritarian government can keep its population quiet by providing strong economic growth and restricting basic freedoms, including freedom of speech.

That formula could be tempting to many Latin leaders weary of harsh criticism in the media and frequent street protests.

But that system is not only a bad thing, but also probably not realistic in Latin America, whose culture is so fundamentally different from China's.

Chinese-made lightbulbs for sale near San Victorino.
Why can't Colombia make its own lightbulbs?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A New Frontier for Cocaine Sales?

Harold Carrillo, facing a death sentence in China for cocaine smuggling.  Part of a trend?

Colombia is appealing to Chinese officials to spare the life of a Colombian man condemned to death there for cocaine trafficking.

Hárold Carrillo, a taxi driver from Cali, told his friends that he was traveling to China "for business," but was arrested in the Beijing airport with three kilos of cocaine hidden among his clothes. 


According to El Tiempo, a dozen Colombians are imprisoned in the People's Republic, two of them sentenced to death, for - surprise, surprise - drug trafficking. I suspect there'll be more.

China's booming middle class is growing so quickly and so rapidly gobbling up the planet's coal, petroleum, sharks' fins and lumber, that it's become a threat to the planet's biodiversity. Traditionally, China's drug of choice has been opium. But opium's sleep-inducing effects aren't exactly appropriate for the country's new, hard-driving culture. It may be only a matter of time before  the Chinese also discover cocaine, long the drug of yuppies and high-powered executives.

Recently, authorities have siezed shipments of cocaine both in Hong Kong and mainland China. And this article, about drugs shipped to Asia by mail, says that a kilo of cocaine in China sells for $200,000 - eight times what it's worth in New York and a hundred times what that kilo can be bought for here in Colombia. That means it's difficult to smuggle cocaine into China - but also that there's lots of demand there.

China is a huge country, with plenty of money and corruption - as shown by the repeated scandals over bad medicines and other products.

If many millions of Chinese develop a taste for cocaine, it'll likely mean the game's up for the already failing War on Drugs, as well as for huge swaths of Amazonian rainforest, which will be converted to coca leaf plantations and Colombia's still delicate democracy. Also, most likely, producers will plant coca leaf in Asia and Africa. This wouldn't be the first time. In the early 1900s, when coca leaf and cocaine were legal, the leaf was planted in Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Java. Why couldn't that be done again, especially in poor, corrupt nations such as Laos and Myanmar?

Mr. Carrillo had told friends he was traveling to the People's Republic for business. A long way for a taxi driver, but his story turned out to be accurate.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Which Way Will the Magdalena River's Future Flow?

The Magdalena River today. 

The Magdalena River is Colombia's Mississippi, flowing for 1,540 kilometers and draining parts or all of 18 departments, where 80 percent of Colombians live. The river contains lots of biodiversity and drains some of the world's most biodiverse regions.

But the Magdalena has huge problems: it's polluted, and stretches are silted up, making shipping impossible. And Colombian officials have long looked at it for potential for generating hydroelectric power.

So, the Magdalena can expect many changes - but will Colombia develop this river in a sustainable way, preserving as much as possible of its grandeur and biodiversity?

Work on the Three Gorges Dam.

Suddenly, I feel very unsure. The other day, Colombia hired Hydrochina, a Chinese state company, to create the 'Master Plan for the Exploitation of the Magdalena River.' Sadly, China's environmental policy at home can be described in five words: 'Economic growth at all costs!' Look at the infamous Three Gorges Dam project, or the terrible pollution choking China's major cities.

Can we expect the Chinese to be more careful with other nations' resources than they have been with their own? I doubt it. 

Smog in China: Responsible environmental stewards?

Colombia might have hired a company from the U.S., Canada, Holland or Brazil - there are lots of countries whose environmental reputations and philosophies are less bleak than China's. But Colombia chose China, probably because the Chinese were willing to finance the plan with $5.7 million, requiring Colombia to pay only $700,000. Like anybody else, the Chinese are only willing to pony up that kind of money because they want something back: political and economic influence and raw materials.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Rail 'Canal' Through Colombia?

Colombian coal train 

Being the only South American nation with coasts on two oceans has long been a source of geological pride for Colombia, but of little practical value. The nation is very mountainous, its transportation infrastructure rudimentary and its long Pacific coastline is remote and roamed by guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug smugglers.

However, the Chinese and Colombian governments are now discussing the possibility of building a several-hundred kilometer railroad line from near Cartagena to a spot on the Pacific coast, most likely Buenaventura.

One has to wonder about the project's economics. After all, the much shorter Panama Canal is nearby, and Panama even has its own shorter rail line across the isthmus.

The rail line would certainly improve Colombia's own transport, particularly for coal. Coal is not environmentally friendly and environmentalists worry that the line will slash through the roadless Darien Gap region. But rail lines are much better than highways, especially in tropical regions, where the roads open jungle areas to slash-and-burn agriculture.

The plan also highlights China's rise in the world. The world's first major modern canal, the Suez, was built in 1869 by French investors and later controlled by the British. The Panama Canal was dug a century ago by the United States (after slicing Panama off of Colombia, whose legislators had opposed the project). Now, the planet's economic center of gravity is shifting into East Asia. 


All of which suggests a troubling scenario: a powerful China dominates the economies and politics of Colombia and other regional countries as the U.S. did in the region for decades. 

One wonders too whether this project, if it happens, will create tension between Colombia and Panama, which is investing billions of dollars in expanding the Panama Canal to accept bigger ships.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours