Then came a $30 million donation for “tourist police development”.
After, a large section of downtown San Jose purchased to build a “China Town” and is currently under construction.
Recent China – Laura Chinchilla negotiations resulted in a number “relationship” building deals with the Chinese:
– China donating $25 million to build a new police academy, with Chinese workers to build the facility
– China donated another $8 million for no reason, Chinchilla to use it at the governments own discretion
-The august trip to China for Chinchilla also result in a deal to build a China Industrial Zone
– $1.7+ billion for the new oil refinery in Limon
– $400 million to expand the main route (32) highway which is a major container shipping route into the port of Limon
– Let’s not forget the 350 police patrol cars China donated – by the way 75 of those have been destroyed and written off, 75 are “inoperable” and 111 are in for maintenance indefinitely waiting for spare parts
– Just this month the government announced a $1.3 million denotation by China for medical equipment for the National Police Academy
These deals are just the ones that make the news; there are a large number of “ninja” deals happening that we don’t see. There have been a large number of land grab real estate deals over the past few years where Chinese investors have bought up large tracks of agricultural land. How many is difficult to track. It is easy to understand the strategy of securing large amounts of agricultural land when you consider that 20,000,000 rural (farmers) Chinese move from the country into the large Chinese cities and that the current population of China is 1.339 billion, so Chinese cities are getting larger, agricultural land is shrinking and the farmers are disappearing, it is no wonder China has been on a global mission to “land grab” and open trade deals all of which have strong agro ties – they need the land to grow food and feed their massive population.
But what about the large tracks of mountainous land that the Chinese are allegedly secretly purchasing? News.co.cr recently drew the connection that it is Costa Rica’s rare earth metals that China is after. China has been stockpiling rare earth metal for decades. According to Fordes.com “China currently accounts for approximately 95 percent of the global supply of rare earths”. Other allegation on what China is after is Costa Rican, an essential element in computer and electronic technologies. All things considered it probably all the above reasons.
China’s here to stay, it’s unfortunate that the USA Government does not seem to see or care about China’s slow take over Costa Rica, and Central America in general. The US may wake up one day to find China owning not only their debt but their backyard as well.
The Costa Rica News (TCRN)
San Jose Costa Rica
