THE CHARM and beauty of Chiang Mai, the capital of northern Thailand, has made the province not only a must-see destination but also a golden nest for foreign investors – especially Chinese seeking business opportunities.

Take Chinese entrepreneurs like Cherry and Zong Dan, for example. Having fallen for Chiang Mai’s charms, they opted to start their first overseas business in the province.

Zong Dan (left)

Cherry, a 35-year-old entrepreneur from Chengdu, decided to invest in a guesthouse in Chiang Mai’s Muang district a few months ago, after finding her previous job as a writer on property issues was no longer satisfying.

She chose Chiang Mai after the city left a deep impression on her when she first visited five years ago.

“Chiang Mai is not far from my hometown, has nice weather, and the people are warm and friendly,” Cherry said.

She rented an eight-room guesthouse on Sirimangkalajarn Road, and partnered with the owner of the building, since Thai laws do not allow her to fully own a business here.

Cherry is currently staying in Thailand on a 60-day tourist visa while she applies for a work permit. It’s a complicated process and expensive, she admits; she even had to return briefly to China to retrieve some required documents.

As a Chinese national, Cherry knows her compatriots prefer to stay in a hotel where staff speak their language, and so she hired Thai staff who can speak some Mandarin.

Her guesthouse boasts many return customers. To boost her sales, she turned to the largest online travel agency in China, Ctrip.

Cherry’s initial investment was around Bt1.5 million and she expects to make it back in the next two years despite strong competition from an abundance of tourist accommodation in Chiang Mai these days.

Asked her advice for other Chinese entrepreneurs considering investing in Thailand, Cherry said people could invest in property to live in or rent out – but she wouldn’t advise anyone to run a guesthouse as she does.

Cherry thinks the number of Chinese tourists coming to Thailand will continue to rise because prices are low and a high-speed train will soon be connecting the two countries.

Asked about anti-Chinese investment sentiment in Thailand, Cherry said, “I hired four Thai staff. They now have jobs and can help to grow the Thai economy.”

‘Miss Liangpi’

Zong Dan moved from Saraburi, where she was a Chinese volunteer teacher two years ago, to Chiang Mai because she likes the city.

She then became the co-owner of the famous Chinese food shop Miss Liangpi in a soi on Nimmanhaemin Road after seeing a business opportunity there. At the time, there were only a couple of Chinese food shops in the city.

With the aim of serving Chinese food to their tourist compatriots, Zong and her husband, whose hometown is in Xi’an in Shaanxi province, decided to open a small shop to sell the signature dish of Xi’an – Liang pi, or cold-skin noodles.

Like Cherry, Zong at first found it difficult to set up the business, including identifying the best location for her shop and then registering her business, which took around three months. Zong, who runs the shop with a Thai partner, now has a work permit in hand.

Her shop was ranked one of the most popular in 2017 by a Chinese review website and now boasts Chinese, Western and Thai customers.

Sales this year, however, have not been as good as last year, Zong says, but the business still makes a healthy profit. Their plan is to run the shop for four or five years and then take stock before deciding their next move.

Research study

The cases of Cherry and Zong match initial findings in an ongoing research project being conducted by academics in the Faculty of Mass Communication, Chiang Mai University.

Supported by the Thailand Research Fund, the “Chinese Investment and its Impact to Tourism Security of Northern Thailand” study spoke to 200 Chinese visitors about their interest in investing in Chiang Mai. They aim to interview another 200 Chinese visitors.

Some 35 per cent said they could invest in Chiang Mai within three to five years, while around 44 per cent said they won’t.

The top three motivating factors drawing them to invest in the province were the beautiful landscape and diversity of the city, the variety of tourist attractions and growth potential, Sunanta Yamthap, a researcher in the group, said.

The researchers also interviewed Thai entrepreneurs and workers who were affected by Chinese investment.

They found that Thai small-scale businesses such as elephant camps or spa and massage facilities are now facing fierce competition and dropping revenues.

An owner of the Maesa Elephant Camp in Mae Rim District told the researchers that Asian tourists love watching elephant shows, so Chinese investors had rented or bought an elephant or two and claimed to be operating an elephant camp that they sold as an attraction to Chinese tour agents.

The Thai elephant-camp owner was sceptical that the Chinese operators were following the regulations required for animal welfare.

Spas and massage businesses are also very popular among tourists these days, and so Chinese tour agencies will often include a particular shop in their tour programmes. Masseurs then flock to that shop to guarantee they earn money, researchers said.

In the property sector, Chinese investors have rented resorts or properties from Thais on one- or two-year contracts. Some have even taken over the properties and opened them for Chinese tourists to stay there, said Thamnoon Tunchuleeporn, general manager at Brique Hotel in Muang District.

Thamnoon Tunchuleeporn

He expressed concerns about whether the Chinese operators could legally run such accommodations, and whether tourists’ safety was being placed at risk.

Last year, Ctrip sent its hotel management group Lvyue to run three hotels in Thailand, including one in Chiang Mai, and has set a target to open 80 more hotels in Thailand.

‘Going out’ policy

Last year, Chinese topped the list of foreign tourists to Thailand, reaching almost 9.8 million visitors and spending around Bt524.4 billion. Authorities expected the number of arrivals this year to reach 12 million.

Chinese were also the only nationality to increase their numbers in Chiang Mai from 2014 to 2016 – with an almost 43 per cent increase – while other nationalities decreased, according to the Intelligence Centre of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).

“When the market grows, demand grows, as does investment. Chinese people feel happier talking with Chinese speakers,” a TAT official who asked not to be named said.

Chinese people are investing in every country in the world, noted Yos Santasombat, a professor of Anthropology at Chiang Mai University. China’s official “going out” policy is spurring investment, and not just in Thailand, he said.

Yos Santasombat

“They are coming to explore the possibility of investment. If there is a better situation or a better deal or a better chance elsewhere they will go there,” said the professor, who has conducted several studies into Chinese capitalism and the impact of China in the Mekong region.

When the Laos government barred foreigners from leasing land or investing in agriculture recently, more Chinese investors began exploring opportunities next door, in Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia.

“In terms of tourism and agricultural investment, Chiang Mai and Thailand have potential – and that’s why many Chinese investors come here,” Yos said.

Since we cannot avoid their investment, the professor suggested that Thais learn from the Chinese and adapt, instead of feeling resentful or anxious about Chinese people doing business in Thailand. Otherwise, he said, we might be left behind.

The Chinese “are very active, diligent and work very hard, so you need to create a new value in Thai society so that people work as hard as the Chinese”, he said.

Despite the trade war between China and United States, Yos said Chinese investment in Southeast Asia, which is now of small and medium scale, would continue and increase because there is a lot of pressure inside China.

Doing business in China might not be as good as it used to be, although the trade war will affect large-scale investment, he said.

But Yos also sounded a note of warning about unregulated foreign investment.

“The point is, how can we find measures to curb [small scale] investors, because they tend to invest in uncontrolled locations or where official oversight is inefficient,” he said.

“We cannot allow our seas and oceans to be littered by endless fields of floating plastic,” the pontiff said in a message on the fourth World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

“Sadly, all too many efforts fail due to the lack of effective regulation and means of control, particularly with regard to the protection of marine areas beyond national confines.”

The pope also said that access “to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right” and deplored that for many it was “difficult if not impossible.

“Our world owes a great social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity,” he said.

The stunt was staged by Yanny Bruere, who describes himself as a free speech advocate, and funded through nearly £60,000 ($78,000, 67,000 euros) in donations on a crowdfunding website.

It follows activists flying a giant balloon depicting US President Donald Trump as an orange nappy-clad baby during demonstrations on July 13 against his visit to Britain.

To the fury of Trump supporters, Khan authorised the flying of the caricature, arguing Londoners had a right to peaceful protest.

Bruere, 28, from Northampton, a town 65 miles north of London, confirmed Saturday’s launch was to hit back at the mayor.

“I think a certain amount of respect should be afforded to the leader of the free world and the greatest ally the UK has — the president of America,” he said.

Organisers chose the yellow bikini because Khan ruled in 2016 London’s transport network would not allow adverts which could create body confidence issues following controversy over a protein shake poster featuring a model in a yellow bikini asking “are you beach body ready?”

A small crowd of supporters and press gathered in Westminster to see the giant inflatable lift off Saturday morning.

It will fly over Parliament Square for two hours. The mayor said people were welcome to watch the stunt.

“If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they’re welcome to do so — I don’t really think yellow’s my colour though,” he quipped to ITV News.

The crew did not notice that the plane’s pitot probes – which measure air pressure to assess speed – were covered, resulting in an air-speed indication failure, according to a preliminary report published by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on Thursday (Aug 30).

The carrier had earlier said on July 19 that the incident “was due to an unexpected technical issue that occurred after take-off”.

The Airbus A330-300 left Brisbane at 11.18pm local time and was due to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 5.50am local time, but had to turn back and land. No one was injured in the incident after it landed back at Brisbane Airport at 12.34am.

However, the main runway had to be closed for 90 minutes, according to newspaper The Australian. The aircraft eventually had to be towed to the gate.

It added that Brisbane Airport requires pitot probes be covered due to wasps building nests in the openings and blocking them.

The red pitot probe covers usually have a long tag labelled with the words “remove before flight”.

The report noted that the covers were not detected by the airlines’ maintenance engineer, the captain and ground handlers during separate external aircraft inspections and pushback, which is when the aircraft is pushed backwards away from an airport gate.

The flight crew and maintenance engineer said in the report that they do not routinely use pitot probe covers on a turnaround and did not normally fly to airports where its use was standard.

It was revealed in security video recordings that the covers were not used in Malaysia Airlines’ three previous turnarounds.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood told The Australian that the incident is a serious one and added that the investigation is ongoing.

“We will be focusing specifically on the procedures for flight crew and ground crew, in relation to the pre-flight checks for the aircraft and also the cockpit warning systems received by the flight crew as they accelerated down Runway 01,” he said.

The Lumajang Police’s criminal investigation unit head, AKP Hasran, said the prisoner, 30, and his wife, 18, died after drinking the same beverage.

“The wife and the prisoner’s mother brought him a meal that had been checked by penitentiary officers,” Hasran said on Friday.

He explained that, according to information gathered, the prisoner asked for plastic cups from the canteen officer. He then poured the beverage into the plastic cups for himself and his wife.

The penitentiary officers and several prisoners brought them to the polyclinic but they died shortly afterwards, Hasran added.

The police took the bottle and the plastic cups used by the victims to the East Java Police forensic laboratory in Surabaya for examination.

The police have also requested Lumajang Hospital to perform an autopsy on the bodies.

“If we bring three million of them from China, what will happen to us? They are hard working and intelligent and have knowledge in business,” he said.

Dr Mahathir said that the Chinese will come as successful businessmen and their attitudes will be different from ethnic Chinese here and it will be hard for locals to compete.

“They are not labourers but those who have succeeded. Are we able to compete with them?

“So, we have to admit our weakness and protect ourselves until we can compete with them,” he said at “The Future of the Bumiputra and the Nation Congress 2018” on Saturday (Sept 1).

He said that the government was willing to open the country to foreign direct investments from China, but not for their citizens to buy up land and control our cities.

“They will buy our land and we will move away from the cities and live at the edge of the forest – if not in the forest itself. This is the picture I foresee,” he said.

“What we want is a foreign investment – for them to set up factories and that the workers are Malaysians and not foreigners.

“It is not for them to own big lands and to develop luxurious cities that we cannot afford to live in.

He said that the Chinese would not be coming in as labourers as in the past.

“In my time, they came in as labourers, and they sell taugeh (bean sprouts) and taukua (dried bean curd) and wooden planks. They were low-level workers, and many rich Malays had amahs (Chinese nannys).

“What has happened to their children? If we care to find out, they have achieved success and some have become billionaires,” he said.

Israel and the United States have accused the nearly 70-year-old agency of maintaining the idea that many Palestinians are refugees with a right to return to the homes from which they fled or were expelled during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation, an idea they both oppose.

On Friday, Washington, which until last year was by far the agency’s biggest contributor announced it was ending funding to the “irredeemably flawed operation.”

“Israel supports the US move,” an official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on condition of anonymity.

“Consolidating the refugee status of Palestinians is one of the problems that perpetuates the conflict.”

Palestinian ambassador Hossam Zomlot accused the United States of “reneging on its international commitment and responsibility” towards a body that was set by UN General Assembly resolution in 1949.

“By endorsing the most extreme Israeli narrative on all issues including the rights of more than five million Palestinian refugees, the US administration has lost its status as peacemaker and is damaging not only an already volatile situation but the prospects for future peace,” he said.

UNRWA now supports some five million registered Palestinian refugees and provides schooling to 526,000 children in the Palestinian territories as well as in camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the agency had his “full confidence” and called on “other countries to help fill the remaining financial gap, so that UNRWA can continue to provide this vital assistance.”

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness tweeted: “We reject in the strongest possible terms the criticism that UNRWA’s schools, health centres and emergency assistance programmes are ‘irredeemably flawed.'”

Washington, which had already frozen $300 million in funding this year throwing the agency into financial crisis, said it would seek ways to prevent its decision from hurting “innocent Palestinians”.

Israel expressed support for a new conduit for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.

“It would be good to allocate the funds to other elements that would use the money properly for the benefit of the population, and not for perpetuating the notion that they are refugees,” the official in Netanyahu’s office said.

Bhante Shanghpriya Sujoy was detained in the UNESCO heritage town of Bodh Gaya, which attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims every year, after boys complained that they had been beaten, abused and forced to dance naked, police said.

The scandal is the latest to hit the Buddhist establishment after the former head of China’s government-run Buddhist association was removed this week as abbot of a Beijing temple following a sexual assault investigation.

A senior police officer at Bodh Gaya told AFP there are “serious allegations” against Bhante Shanghpriya Sujoy who took boys aged between six and 12 from impoverished families in India’s remote northeast.

“The children complained to their guardians about physical and sexual abuse by their head monk.

“The children say they were thrashed and sexually abused at the school. They were locked up without food and water if they resisted,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bhante Shanghpriya Sujoy was first arrested on Wednesday and police are also investigating the trust which runs the school.

Fishermen came across the rusted and empty vessel, bearing the name “Sam Rataulangi PB 1600”, drifting in the Gulf of Martaban, about 11 kilometres (seven miles) off the coast of Myanmar’s commercial capital.

Myanmar Navy personnel boarded the vessel to investigate the situation this week, and shed some light on their search in a post on the navy’s official Facebook page late Friday.

“It was the view that the ship could have been towed by another ship after two cables… were found at its head”, the post said.

The navy’s coastal radar records showed the movement of two ships on Sunday and Monday in the Yangon and Sittaung rivers — which run into the Gulf of Martaban.

Based on these findings, the navy scoured the waters for a second ship and found the “Independence” vessel, carrying 13 Indonesian crew members, about 80 kilometres from Yangon’s shores.

After questioning the crew members, the navy discovered that the Independence departed August 13 from Jakarta towing the old vessel bound for a ship-breaking factory in Bangladesh, the Facebook post said.

“They faced bad weather when they arrived south of Yangon River”, the navy said. “The cables attached to the ship broke, and the ship was floating along with the tide and it was difficult to continue its journey.”

Old and unseaworthy vessels are often towed to Bangladesh’s southern Chittagong province, which houses a thriving — and controversial — ship-breaking industry.

According to the Marine Traffic website, which lists the movements of ships around the globe, the vessel was built in 2001 and had a deadweight of 26,500 tonnes.

The navy said the investigation is ongoing.