'Miserable and Dangerous': A Failed Chinese Promise in Serbia Poor conditions for Vietnamese workers
Poor conditions for Vietnamese workers building a $900 million tire factory underscore a chasm between the promise of investment from China and grim realities on the ground.
ZRENJANIN, Serbia — Seeking escape from grinding poverty in northern Vietnam, the 43-year-old farmer labored for years on construction sites in Kuwait and Uzbekistan before being offered a ticket to what he was told would be “the promised land” — Europe, and a job with a good salary.
“I wanted to go to the West to change my life,” the farmer, a father of three who asked that his name not be used to avoid retribution from his employer, recalled in an interview.
His life certainly changed: It got much worse.
The job turned out to be in Serbia, one of Europe’s poorest nations, with a Chinese company whose gigantic tire factory now under construction in the northern city of Zrenjanin has become a symbol of the chasm between the alluring promise of investment from China and the sometimes grim reality on the ground.
Touted as China’s biggest industrial investment in Europe, the $900 million Ling Long Tire factory is now a magnet of criticism for a Serbian government that opponents accuse of no-questions-asked subservience to China. Workers and activists say problems like human trafficking, prisonlike working conditions and environmental abuse are endemic.
About 400 Vietnamese work in Zrenjanin, along with hundreds more Chinese, who get higher salaries and better living conditions, according to the workers and local labor activists. The former farmer from Vietnam described his work conditions in Serbia as “miserable and dangerous,” and said he was housed in a decrepit shack crammed with other Vietnamese workers and bullied by Chinese supervisors.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/22/world/europe/china-serbia-vietnamese-workers.html
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