Tongan Politics

Tonga has very rich fishing grounds that the likes of Japan and China would love to get their hands on. We all know that if fishing rights are assigned to either country, Tongan waters will be pillaged within a few short years. Japan tries a friendly way: providing Tonga with 50 million dollars of financial aid yearly. Japan and Tonga have no cultural or historical ties so this funding must have a purpose.

China however has a very different approach.

The Chinese government funds poor Chinese students to open shops all over the islands. The Chinese cheat import taxes by fudging the invoice numbers, and then sell waaay below normal prices. It is no wonder that the Chinese have taken over all but a very few shops in a very, very short time. Now they are moving into more advanced parts of the economy: infrastructure, hospitality, building and even agriculture. There is no doubt in my mind this is a coordinated and very well executed effort aimed at gaining enough leverage to force the Tongan government to release the fishing grounds or other assets.

The fact that Tongan politicians are corrupt and the upper-class called "the nobles" are very busy filling their own pockets doesn't help. For example Sea cucumber fishing rights can't be sold to foreigners by the state, so they are given to the Nobles who then sell them for about 150K to the Chinese. The Chinese waste no time sending in their Sea cucumber fishers or delegate the task to locals. The Government gets zero dollars for this and Tonga loses.

I spoke with someone from the World Bank, a representative for UN cultural research, a local self made man and a few small business owners. And one theme resonated between them: this government is in dire need of some good political consultants who must help getting Tonga back on track.

It is unfortunate that the King of Tonga has a deep liking for alcohol. So much so, that it inhibits his ability to adequately govern the country. The King will relinquish his absolute power next year to the government but the damage is irreparable. Corruption has taken hold of the island under the sun. For example most of the 24 million Euros made available by the European Union for infrastructure works have disappeared. The remaining dollars are paid to a Chinese company who has flown in their own people and construction tools. So no-one gains anything from the investment but a few fat-cats.

I'll put my money on social pressures mounting and an explosion of violence like we saw in 2002 where half the city centre was burned down.