Loading ...Chinese weirdos. What are they going to do, grind them up for some herbal remedy? Idiots. Me make choppy stick
Chinese President’s Delegation Tied to Illegal Ivory Purchases During Africa Visit
In March 2013, President Xi Jinping of China arrived in the East African country of Tanzania on his first visit to the continent as leader of the world’s second-largest economy. He was joined by a large entourage of Chinese government officials and business leaders, officially there to promote a mutually beneficial relationship between the two countries.
But according to a new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nongovernmental organization based in London, members of the delegation used Mr. Xi’s visit as an opportunity to procure so much illegal ivory that local prices doubled to $700 per kilogram, or about $318 per pound. In fact, two weeks before Mr. Xi arrived, Chinese buyers went on a shopping spree for illegal ivory, purchasing thousands of pounds of poached tusks, which were “later sent to China in diplomatic bags on the presidential plane,” says the report, “Vanishing Point: Criminality, Corruption and the Devastation of Tanzania’s Elephants,” which was released on Thursday.
“Your president, he was here,” said Suleiman Mochiwa, a Tanzanian ivory smuggler, referring to Mr. Xi in hidden camera footage provided by the organization. “When he was here, many kilos go out on his plane with the escort. They buy from us.”
At a time when the Chinese government is trying to prove itself a responsible state actor that is serious about rooting out corruption and abiding by international law, the organization’s report describes a devastating environmental cost of China’s geopolitical rise: Chinese diplomats and military personnel, it says, are colluding with corrupt Tanzanian officials and Chinese-led crime syndicates that send huge amounts of illegal ivory to China, reducing Tanzania’s elephant population by half. Read more