Posted on 03/31/2004 10:48:08 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Want to go to England to seek your fortune? No passport? No visa? No problem. For 60,000 yuan ($7,250), snakehead Ah Shu can help.
Sitting in a dingy beauty salon that is the front for a cheap brothel, Ah Shu and his friends say they help arrange trips each year for "dozens" of Chinese desperate to leave grinding poverty for a better life abroad.
"Half now, half when you get there. That's the deal," he said in thickly accented Mandarin, referring to payment. "60,000 yuan -- that's my best offer."
People have been leaving the rugged eastern coastal province of Fujian for centuries, escaping civil war, famine and poverty.
The sinister role of the snakehead, or people smuggler, in this exodus came to light in the 1990s, when ships carrying human cargoes were intercepted in the United States.
In June 2000, 58 Chinese illegal immigrants from Fujian were found suffocated in a tomato truck at the British port of Dover.
Last month 19 people, mostly Chinese migrants from Fujian, were swept away by a rising tide while collecting shellfish on a northwest England beach.
But the Morecambe Bay case highlights a subtle shift in methods and destinations, as snakeheads seek to overcome a crackdown at home, a tightening at international borders, and still meet relentless demand.
Ah Shu, from his shop in a seaside town near the provincial capital Fuzhou, says the days of sneaking people into foreign countries in tightly packed cargo containers or the backs of trucks are gone.
"We don't dare do it that way any more," he said. "You get executed for doing it like that now if you're caught."
People smuggling has become a sophisticated business, involving real passports and in many cases real visas, he said.
Ah Shu offers to help with the bribes to get a Chinese passport -- it takes just a few thousand yuan to grease the palms of the right officials. Then he has middlemen in the local government and in England issue false letters of invitation from schools or businesses, which he says are accepted by embassies.
The preferred route is through one of the growing list of countries which have opened to Chinese tourism in recent years.
"We fly them into Hong Kong or Bangkok first. They're so keen to attract Chinese tourists they rarely question their documents," the middle-aged businessman said.
"It's easy for us to get people out of China and into England," Ah Shu boasted through nicotine-stained teeth. "The system is so corrupt down here getting your hands on the right pieces of paper is simple."
A BETTER LIFE
Tales of hardship for victims of human smuggling fall flat on the streets of this town in Fujian.
China's economy may be the envy of the world, with growth coming in at just over nine percent in 2003, but the country's economic miracle appears to have passed by this area.
"Look around you. Don't tell me this is better than England," said 31-year-old Xiao Peng, who splits his time between riding a pedicab and procuring prostitutes for Taiwanese businessmen, gesturing at the potholed road and boarded-up warehouses.
"I know it's dangerous to go abroad, but it's a risk well taken. There's too many people in China and not enough work."
Local people tell of whole villages where almost all the young men are in Europe or the United States.
"Sure I know people in England. Three of my relatives went there last year," said 35-year-old taxi driver Xiao Huang. "It'll take 30 years for our economy to catch up with theirs. We can't wait that long."
The huge loans taken out to fund the trips, probability of getting caught and the sweatshop conditions many immigrants find themselves working in are seen as part of the deal, the gamble of hitting a gold mine abroad all the enticement needed. "We're poor here. Would you want to stay?" she said, waving her hand at a rundown bus station in central Fuzhou with people fighting to get on rickety buses to take them out of the city, where grim tenements fight for space with gleaming factories.
Did her relatives use a snakehead to get there?
"Well...of course," Huang said, a sly smile breaking out over her make-up encrusted face. "Is there any other way?"
"JUST BAD LUCK"
The tragedy of the cockle-pickers got wide play in China. Many in Fuzhou said they had read about it, but added that it was a price worth paying.
"You know how much you can earn there? A thousand dollars a month! I'm lucky to earn that a year," Peng grumbled, brushing off the incident as just "bad luck."
England has become the main choice of destination now, Ah Shu said, following a tightening of visas and border controls in the United States following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"You can always claim asylum in England if things go wrong," he said blithely.
British diplomats in China say they are aware of the problem and take it very seriously.
But tighter controls are unlikely to prevent people from trying their luck.
"Going overseas is a tradition here," said Fuzhou businessman Chen Junhua with a shrug. "You're not going to stop it."
Already, Ah Shu and his fellow snakeheads look forward to exploiting an agreement between China and the 13 European Union countries which have signed up to the Schengen agreement granting approved tourist destination status for Chinese tourists.
"All those countries to choose from with just one visa. Can you imagine?"
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