Western Media Coverage of China, Serbia, and Copper Mining

https://www.politico.eu/article/serbia-bor-mine-china-zijin-mining-group-health/

Serbia continues to be a problem for the Atlanticist Empire. The US led two wars connected to Serbia in the 1990's and while it defeated the Serbs and wrested Kosovo away from Belgrade - the problem was never resolved. Serbia remains a thorn in the side of both Washington and Brussels, a beach-head for Moscow's interests and influence in the Balkans.

But things have changed since the rise of Trump. The dynamics of NATO have changed as has the US relationship to Europe as a whole.

There has been evidence to suggest Serbian elements are working with Beijing. A report from the US government's Radio Free Europe (most likely still an arm of the CIA) suggested that officials in Belgrade were lax with regard to the house arrest of two men wanted by the FBI for espionage connected to China. Were they lax or did the Serbs simply let them go? If the latter is true, it would hardly be surprising. Serbia has little reason to try and please the Americans who have bombed and sabotaged their country and have repeatedly attempted to manipulate their politics. Why wouldn't they help America's enemies?

The negative perceptions of Serbia-Chinese relations make me wonder about the story regarding Beijing's mining interests in Bor. The Politico piece calls attention to the tensions between local residents and Chinese mining interests. Of course the EU is frustrated by the fact that it wants access to these resources - copper being a premium for today's tech industry. It could be that the Serbs of Bor are just little people suffering as a result of geopolitics and mega-corporations, or it could be that Western interests want to stoke tensions. It could also be a bit of both.

Of course Western corporations engage in this same kind of destructive and exploitative behaviour all over Latin America, Africa, and beyond and yet these stories rarely make it into mainstream Western outlets. The fact that this anti-Chinese piece appears in Politico - it's hard not to be a little cynical. Western media outlets don't seem too concerned about national sovereignty and neo-colonial influence when it comes to European and American companies operating in the developing world.

The pictures remind me of West Virginia - but in that case the miners are locals desperate for work and dreaming of good old days that will not return, even if they vote for Trump one hundred times. The polluted rivers and devastated landscape are the hallmarks of both old and new mining techniques. In West Virginia the coal companies engage in mountaintop removal and I can think of several places in Pennsylvania coal country where the waterways are completely destroyed by mining - they run orange and are completely toxic. It's especially true in Anthracite regions.

The story here is sad but familiar and hardly exclusive to Chinese corporate mining. It must be remembered that Politico requires its employees to support a United Europe, free markets, and Israel. The first point is critical to understanding the coverage in this story.