China might want to think again about its use of tourism as a means of influencing Palau. The people of the little Western Pacific country believe they’d be better off without swarms of tourists from China on their islands, causing environmental damage and spending their money mostly with Chinese businesses.
Other ill-effects include upward pressure on prices and the locking up of land in China-linked real estate investments, Palauan officials and people involved in tourism said in interviews.
In a leaked letter this year, the president of the country of 18,000 people, Surangel Whipps Jr, told an unidentified US senator that China had offered to ‘fill every hotel room’ and build as many more as…
