Rainbow City is little more than a swathe of grassland on an island in the Pacific, but it has an apparently grand future.This patch of paradise on Efate, the island that is home to Vanuatu's capital, will eventually become a mini city for foreigners.To get more chinese news, you can visit shine news official website.
Over the next 10 years, the buildings over 86 hectares of open land will come to dwarf the surrounding villages, private homes and small resorts that neighbour it.Supported by private, Chinese-backed investment, it is the biggest residential development in Vanuatu.
Australia and the United States have been worried about the growing level of Chinese government interest in Vanuatu and the Pacific more broadly, but private investments from China like Rainbow City are booming.And for locals, it is the most direct source of disquiet and discomfort about the future of their island homes.Behind Rainbow City is one woman, Ruimin Cheng, who has lived in Vanuatu for about 10 years, and is known locally as Amy Feng.
She is the head of the Port Vila-based FPF Company, which, as well as developing Rainbow City, runs a weekly newspaper and advises foreigners on Vanuatu's citizenship-by-investment program."People from the whole world will come here … [from] England or Australia, or … China or Hong Kong, Macau."
Although ostensibly aimed at attracting investors from around the world, the marketing and design of the development — which the company has dubbed Little Singapore — is clearly geared towards Asian investment.
Preliminary construction has begun, but not a single property has been sold yet, or even put on the market."A lot of people [are] asking how much to buy," Ms Cheng said.
"Soon we will make it to market," she went on to explain, saying the first property sales were due to take place around the end of the year.In lieu of buyers, the first stages of the development are being funded by Ms Cheng's private companies — some based in Vanuatu, others in China.
When pressed, she was vague about how many and which companies were financially backing the project.The concrete wall that rings the Rainbow City site was the first thing to be built and it sits uneasily with ni-Vanuatu, as the people native to the islands of Vanuatu are known.We don't understand the Rainbow City, actually. We need the Government to explain it to us," he said.
"All the Chinese is building this. The community that is living around here, they do not understand."There is no shortage of resorts and foreign visitors in Vanuatu, with tourism the mainstay of the nation's economy.Vanuatu is made up of more than 80 islands in the South Pacific, east of Townsville and west of Fiji, which makes it a hotspot for travellers seeking quiet, untouched beaches and world-class diving.
But this development is of a previously unseen scale and coincides with growing concern about Chinese influence in the region.Mr Toara is emphatic this development is unparalleled in Vanuatu."Never. Never. Never. I am ni-Vanuatu and I have never seen this before," he said.His mother, Gabriel Toara, presses the point, switching from her native Bislama to halting English to get her message across.
