Pearls for the orient

Eric Ellis, Business Day WHAT is ''The String of Pearls?'' If you are a mainland Chinese ''bizoid'', it is your toil for the motherland in joining strategic points of the globe, including Australia, to secure China's imminent dominance of the world economy. And in doing so, you'll be ably assisted by compliant locals wherever you labour, all eager to help if there's some quick yuan to be made.

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Quietly, efficiently and persuasively, from East Timor to Greece and myriad points in between, ''China Inc'' is building a self-sustaining, vertically integrated network of quasi-sovereign economic entities to secure its supply lines. But the pearl string's primary intent is to keep China's ravenous economic beast back home fed, while placating those who tend it - a guaranteeing of the proverbial iron rice bowl of 1.3 billion Chinese, lest they get uppity. More...

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