Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

56 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
The most important single reason for this is not hard
to identify. Suddenly, between January and February 2012,
China’s $27 billion trade surplus turned into a $31 billion
deficit—the largest such deficit in 12 years. The announcement
triggered a fall in the fortunes of mining and energy
companies “almost across the board.” 39
At the heart of the Chinese economic malaise, according
to the country’s leadership itself, is the recent boom in property
prices. This is now seen as a potentially huge, damaging
“bubble,” which is threatening the country’s fiscal stability. 40
And it is not difficult to predict that, if China’s property sector
is “tamed,” then demand for its key “building blocks”—steel,
aluminium, cement, aggregates and fossil fuels—will also be
significantly curtailed.
China’s Rising
Chinese citizens have rushed headlong into investing in
real estate and massive infrastructure projects required to service
building programmes and expanded transportation. This
has placed hundreds of thousands of citizens at risk of losing
their land and small businesses, thus triggering mass protests
across the country.
At least some of those in Beijing’s top power-elite seem to
comprehend the urgency of curtailing the state’s recent profligacy
in mining and metals output, in order to reduce such
conflicts—one of which occurred just as this essay was being
written. 41
Not doing so is a recipe for increasing civil strife. At the
same time the regime must meet the expectations for greater
private ownership of property and access to—often imported—luxury
goods of its growing middle class. This dilemma
is not restricted to China—but its dimensions are unequalled
anywhere else, even in India.