60 Minutes Covers The Chinese-Fijian Land Grab Scandal
What do you do when a Chinese corporation takes your parcel of paradise?
Surely you remember the story of Nav Fox and Woody Jack, two Angourie locals who saved up all the pennies in their piggy banks to fulfill a childhood dream of owning land in Fiji.
With the help of a local Fijian named Jonah, the boys bought a small parcel on the island of Malolo, where, if you climb the highest tree and use NASA-grade binoculars, you might be able to see Cloudbreak. They boys had planned to build a small, sustainable surf resort on the land.
Then came the Chinese, wielding heavy machinery and small metal rods to fend off intruders.
Freesoul, a Chinese corporation with headquarters Fiji, had bought the lot adjacent to Nav and Woody and planned to build a multimillion dollar resort and casino on the land – not an ideal situation, but a common result of our free market system. AKA don’t hate the player, hate the game.
The problem was, Freesoul decided to (illegally) cut a massive hole in the reef to facilitate entry to the island and they physically encroached on the Aussie boys’ land, going so far as to erect a fence through the middle of their parcel.
The story has many twists and turns, but rather than reading (or re-reading) about it here you can catch all the juicy details above. If you’re able to stop yourself from laughing at the host’s manufactured tone for more than five seconds at a time, you might really get something out of this segment.
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