.

NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Bulgaria becomes a Chinese Food Colony



The Road to Serfdom

  • The Chinese Communists are on the march all over the world.  They are using state owned corporations and shell "private" businesses to take over farm land and mineral rights in local nations.
  • Local citizens are no longer free in their own country.  They have effectively become dependent employees of the Chinese Communist Party.  
  • The Communists in turn bribe local officials in the host country to maintain "law & order" and make sure labor unions are not allowed and the workers toil endlessly for the State.


(Farmland Grab.org)  -  In November 2014, a corn shipment from Bulgaria arrived at the Port of Shenzhen, China. The corn was grown on leased land in Bulgaria by a Chinese company that had invested close to $80 million in Bulgaria, to grow and process grains, and oils for export to China. 

The company set up a Bulgarian subsidiary in 2011, leased 28,700 hectare (ha) of land, and purchased processing plants and storage facilities in the country. The Chinese embassy in Bulgaria identified the country as a favorable target for Chinese agricultural investment in Europe, and the project was endorsed by Chinese dignitaries (Luo, 2014).

As China becomes a large importer, its food security strategy calls for gaining control over imports from their source. To achieve this, a growing number of Chinese companies are making investments abroad that resemble the Bulgarian project. U.S. leaders in agriculture, business, and government should be aware of this new development in agricultural markets.


COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation) is
one of 
China's state-owned food processing holding companies


Whole Supply Chain Control

China has a long history of investing in agriculture overseas with a mix of foreign aid and commercial objectives (Chen, Zhang, and Wang, 2009). As China’s imports rise, investment is growing rapidly as Chinese companies pursue profit-making opportunities with encouragement from the Chinese government (The Paulson Institute, 2013; Han, Jin, and Wu, 2014).  Chinese President Xi Jinping has advocated agricultural investment as a national food security and diplomatic strategy, and officials say outward foreign direct investment in agriculture (OFDI-A) is in its early stages (Xinhua News Service, 2014; Global Entrepreneur, 2014; Smaller, Wei, and Liu, 2012). 

China’s OFDI-A is diverse, ranging from small farms cultivating rice across the Russian border, to massive oil palm plantations and processing facilities in Indonesia. In August 2014, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced that over 300 Chinese companies were investing in agricultural, forestry, and fishing projects in 46 countries (Farmer's Daily, 2014). The Ministry of Agriculture reported that Chinese businesses and state-owned enterprises had cultivated over 230,000 ha of foreign land by the end of 2013.

Chinese OFDI-A is aimed at gaining greater control in the global marketplace. The strategy encompasses mergers and acquisitions of firms from developed economies, while also laying out a clustered investment strategy to access under-utilized agricultural resources with an emphasis on Africa (Ministry of Commerce, 2015; GRAIN, 2012).   The strategy has evolved from the traditional focus on land acquisitions to encompass investments in the entire supply chain, including processing, logistics, ports, and trading. The strategy is influenced by the widespread belief among Chinese government and industry leaders that multinational trading companies will gain large profits and influence prices by controlling the supply chain for Chinese imports of soybeans and other commodities (Dan, 2014; Irwin and Gallagher, 2014; Niu and Wong, 2014; Schneider and Sharma, 2014).

An example is the recent purchase by China’s State-owned agriculture and foodstuff giant, COFCO, for a majority share of Dutch grain trader Nidera for an estimated $1.6 million. The acquisition gives COFCO access to Nidera’s Brazilian assets and helps COFCO compete with multinational grain traders.  State-backed enterprises like COFCO, Chongqing Grain Group Co., Ltd, and Beidahuang have been the central actors in China’s procurement of a large portion of the agricultural marketplace (Hu, 2013), but private companies like WH Group and New Hope Group Co., Ltd. also play a major role. 

Read More . . . .


.
A Serf bows to his Lord.
Free men own private property. Serfs own nothing and serve as tax slaves for the government, or work the businesses and lands of the well connected Elites for almost no pay.  They are forced to turn over the wealth they produced to their Lords and Masters in return for "protection", shelter and food.


The Road to Serfdom Series

The world is moving toward a modern form of Neo-Serfdom where everyone works for the all-powerful State, businesses controlled by the State or businesses that have bought "protection" from the State.  A world where individual property rights and freedom do not exist.


Freedom is slowly vanishing.  What happens when the major employers are owned by government backed investment groups, or your food comes from government owned farms, or your news is delivered by so-called "private" corporations that are in reality connected and interconnected to governments?

George Orwell had a name for it:  Big Brother.  Benito Mussolini had a name too: Corporatism or Fascism.

Please check out other stories in our Serfdom series.


THE FEDERALIST - "Road to Serfdom - American workers replaced by aliens"

THE FEDERALIST - "Ban on Feeding Homeless Lifted - Police Execute Homeless Man For Camping"

THE FEDERALIST - "Feds to Build Terminator Companions for Children"

THE FEDERALIST - "Of Coffee, Dairy Queen and Unemployment"

THE FEDERALIST - "Temporary" foreign workers hired for trades, professional jobs

THE FEDERALIST - "Slavery at McDonalds in Canada?"

THE FEDERALIST - "Chinese 'Food Colonies' set up in Canada, the U.S and the Ukraine"

THE FEDERALIST - "Chinese Communists buy U.S. pork giant"

THE FEDERALIST - "A Massive Theft of Cambodian land by Europe"

THE FEDERALIST - "Private property confiscated in Ethiopia & sold to multi-national corporations."

THE FEDERALIST - "Tax Slavery American Style - Feds Profit off Student Debt."

THE FEDERALIST - "Slavery returns to Europe"
.



No comments: