Excerpt:

These deals are shrouded in secrecy. However, they appear to grant the Queensway syndicate remarkably profitable terms. If that is right, then they would be depriving some of the world’s poorest people of desperately needed wealth. Because the syndicate has done deals with the regimes in strife-torn places, such as Zimbabwe and Guinea, it may also have indirectly helped sustain violent conflicts.

Full article here: http://www.economist.com/node/21525847

You can literally transpose this as-is into any shadowrun game!

Yeah, but with blue China (Canton Confederacy, Taiwan, this sort of people), Red China (Beijing, today's PRC), Chinese corps (is Wuxing the only one? RLY?)? And where do we place Lung on this one?

Uh, in case you haven't noticed, resource contracts with Africa kinda tend to "deprive some of the world’s poorest people of desperately needed wealth", that's not limited to the Chinese - just how that market operates. Oh, and it's not limited to just Africa, either. Nothing out of the ordinary - at least they haven't started a war for what they want under a guise of "humanitarian causes" like Exxon, Shell, Total or BP.

Something had to inspire this song.

Need I remind you who started and sponsored wars for what they wanted under a guise of "ongoing socialist revolution"?

Started? You do. You also might want to notice how that was done for the sake of lucrative resource contracts.

Raise your hand if you actually followed the link

Yeah didn't think so.

The fact its chinese has no bearing.

*raises hand*

Well, the text tries to present the company's actions like something out of the ordinary, something that should be frowned upon, while in fact all (okay, most of, let's give them the benefit of doubt) of resource-grabbing corps are opaque villainous organizations without any regard for the well-being of the populations of the countries they exploit and with massive lobbies in the world's governments. "It's a highly competitive field" they say.

It seems to have some bearing: some of their deals break international sanctions, so they cannot import the goods in China without a level of complicity within the authorities. The foreigners involved provide the local contacts and the Chinese side is the fence.

The French intermediate, Pierre Falcone, has been convicted in France for arm smuggling with Angola. In the early stages of the affair, he was released on bail but forbidden to leave France. Then Angola appointed him as its ambassador to the UNESCO and he left the country using his brand new diplomatic immunity.

And people wonder why I'm cynical.

My Uncle just got a job... Somewhere, shall we say... To fix a major screw-up. With a railroad. That he built in the first place only a handful of years ago. He's hardly Lawyers, Guns, and Money, but he is a troubleshooter when it comes to transportation infrastructure. Some of the stories I've heard from him... Yeah, this doesn't surprise me in the least.

I just worry when they do not even make the appearance of shame...

Why should they? Some places, there's so little outcry for human life that... Well...

*Shakes Head* Sorry folks, can't go down that mental path right now.

Well, actually I did. Let's see, guy with government connections deals with despots for fun and profits. Apparently, he's doing it on his own and can't even be touched for that. Status quo isn't changed, public opinion of the White Man's Civilization™ frowns.
Then, out-of-the-ass comparison with governments starting wars to actively (or, lately, not quite so) depose the despots. We all know how the public opinion of the White Man's Civilization™ reacts to despots, and to the news of them getting deposed. After all, it's nice to know that some third-world asshole who enjoys dumping nerve gas on his own citizens, sniping them during peaceful protests or forbidding them from listening to music got his shit wrecked. It's not the sixties anymore, when White Man's Civilization™ pulled a couple too many half-assed attempts to depose local governments just because they were either too stubborn to deal with or huggin' with the Russian bear. Not like the Russian bear didn't pull exactly same kind of shit in Afghanistan (all right, A-stan happened in the eighties).

Also, my questions regarding "which Chinese" were referring strictly to Shadowrun's universe.

Ah, the misconception of capitalism not giving shit about people. In the age of NGOs, whistleblowers, Wikileaks, independent journalists and other things like that, not giving shit about people is going to fuck up your profits, so you have to see some non-monetary gain in keeping people just happy enough with you. Just look at Shadowrun, especially at Horizon. Those guys know how to get to people - for example, it's mandatory for their employees to take part in non-profit projects, because it raises the public perception of corporation. So what they hire shadowgoons to engineer scandals aimed at their competitors, like dumping a stiff in a food-processing plant's machinery, or a faked kidnapping of their star-of-the-week? They're seen as the corporation that cares - like handing CalorieMates and blankets to those poor homeless folks who barely managed to escape El Infierno. Or turning criminals into productive members of society, you don't want to know how.

That is China. and the Chinese, and how they do business. If you ain't part of the family, you are dirt.

and it is not as if every other major power hasn't done the exact same thing before them.

4. Discussion of politics... are prohibited, except as they directly pertain to Shadowrun or another game. Discussions on these subjects will be watched closely, and any innapropriate posts may result in warnings or suspensions.

Some of the above comments are treading dangerously close. Be warned.

I wouldn't say 'eaxctly the same' - western equivalents have less emphasis on whom the mover and shakers are realted to and more to who they know and who's elections they finance.

Morality-wise, they're on par but the methods have a slightly different flavor. Though even in the west family ties can play a role : in the fifties (or maybe sixties) the CIA sponsered a coup in a central american country where the government proved it's commie leaning by tightening a bit the fiscal and legal screws on the Chiquita corporation. It was a mere coincidence than the CIA's director at that time had a borther on the board of the Chiquita company...

In shadowrun I'd think it will be the same : the methods will be equally unscrupulous and won't give a fig about the local's well-being, but the aprties involed will give their own flavors and twists on the methods used. None being much cleaner than the other.

Folks, we've been warned. Unless we start referring to how this applies to how Ares is doing the same thing to the people of Africa and such, we're probably going to get locked down.

Well, do we even really know what's going on in Africa in SR timeline besides scattered notices about things like Kilimanjaro launchpad and the ghoul nation?
Besides, in SR, megas are doing the whole exploitation thing to everyone, not just the third world countries - what's to stop them?

The UN?

...

...

...

Yeah, I can't say that with a straight face either.

Well, yeah. That's pretty much the point of Shadowrun, corporations shafting the third-world nations. I would kinda expect the exploitation of Africa to continue. But considering that Amazonia stood up... You just don't mess with the shamans.
You evil, evil, evil man... you made me chuckle!

Corporations shafting everyone would be a more precise description.
And yeah, you don't mess with the shamans as long as they have three great dragons on their side Luckily, it's not a common arrangement, and corps are likely to get quite a share of the top magic talent anyway...

And some Corps have Dragons on their side as well.

One is owned by a Great Dragon.

Sure we do. In the spirit of the words of either Hermit or Stahlseele (because I can't keep that avatar apart): Here there be <people better genetically and dermatologically fit to endure long ammounts of exposure to sunlight>.

Watch it, I almost got banned from Dumpshock for saying such things.

I'm, still trying to figure out how that was even possible.

Proof for that?

Oh no, I'm not getting in trouble again!

One interesting aspect of the article may not be so much that a corporation is pillage a country, but exactly HOW that is being done. The ties going back to Soviet days, building relations during war time, bringing into the fold ministers, bypassing governements by paying off the secret police instead... that's all juicy stuff to build NPCs and plots around. Plus that big boss that uses many different names (like, seriously, that's James Bond shit), how the corporations making up the syndicate aren't actually owned by an umbrella entity. That's the real pay data.

The last bit (independent corporations owned by a group of unofficially connected businessmen) sounds pretty much like Aztech's operation in LA. Also, "bypassing governments by paying off the secret police" - it's not like that. In third-world bush kingdoms secret police pretty much IS the government, and if it's not secret police, then it's the powers behind the throne - powerful businessmen, tribal leaders and the like. One example: nine years ago, there was a major fuck-up in Congo involving an intelligence agent from my country. In short: the dumb schmuck tried to rip off THE Congolese tycoon. Not "a" tycoon, but "THE" tycoon, with a capital "THE" - Nyembwe Kazadi, a close friend of late president Laurent Kabila and trusted advisor and protector of the new president, Kabila's son Joseph. Now, here's how it happened:

The guy was our consul and charge d'affaires in Congo, responsible for pretty damn everything going between Congo and Poland. He's got a brilliant idea of creating a fake company just to secure a multi-billion oil contract - however, in order to drill for oil in Congo, foreign capital has to go into joint venture with state-owned companies. So, our schmuck, after feeding some unbelievably shaky bullshit to the Congolese government and getting a large Polish company, Petrobaltic, to back it up, ended up in a business with Nyembwe Kazadi's company, Cohydro. And all would be fine and dandy if Kazadi didn't want to call our schmuck's bluff.
Here's where the fun starts. Kazadi managed to confirm that Petrobaltic was a straight shooter, but despite trying everything he couldn't find any confirmed info about the fake company. So he asked Petrobaltic's president - sadly, after our schmuck warned him (officially, using his intelligence connections) that Kazadi is "a fraud and a blackmailer". So Petrobaltic's boss ignored Kazadi, who then got an undoubtedly brilliant idea of going to Poland and checking things out firsthand. The problem was, he needed a visa. Now, go back to the beginning of the paragraph. Yeah, there. Guy who was trying to rip him off was also the Polish consul and of course denied him the visa. Unluckily for our guy, Kazadi was a persistent son-of-a-bitch and managed to get the visa from a Polish consulate in a different country. I guess you already figured out the shit is going to hit the fan in a minute.
And splat, here it does! Kazadi was stopped at the airport by the Border Guard, who were warned (officially) that he was "a fraud and a blackmailer" - it took the intervention of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs to un-fuck the situation. So Kazadi went to a couple of meetings, sadly none of them with Petrobaltic, and then decided to go back to Congo. Before the departure, however, he received info that he would be arrested as soon as he touches the ground, but he disregarded it and returned to Congo, only to be arrested for treason. But, considering that he is THE Congolese tycoon, his security detail managed to fend off the Congolese secret police at the airport and hide Kazadi long enough for him to contact the president. President Kabila, seeing a potential coup d'etat, arranged a meeting with Kazadi and the head of secret police, demanded to know what exactly went down. Turned out, Kazadi was to be arrested for espionage, more exactly - spying for Poland. Who supplied the secret police with this info? Yes, you're correct, our schmuck the consul. He even managed to pass it as official info from the Polish intelligence agency. Kazadi lost his shit and decided to get to the bottom of all this. Took him some time, but he eventually did figure out who and how wanted to shaft him and Congo.

However, the Polish part of the deal is so confusing that even the journalist who wrote about it isn't exactly sure who would profit from it (because the consul was obviously a small fry), but suggests some names of powerful local businessmen with political connections. That and weird operations by people from the Polish intelligence agency, aimed at taking over some state-owned companies.