When I was browsing news online on February 1, the words “News Express” emerged on the computer screen. Then, a sentence caught my eyes: “25 Chinese workers have been released by the local people in Egypt”. It is really good news for China because just a few days ago a bad message were sent to us that 29 countrymen were hijacked by rebels in Sudan which made us worried about their safety.
Given the two events of Chinese overseas workers being hijacked, I have to say, as our economy interweaves more closely with the rest of the world, it is very important to improve risk awareness, strengthen safety management and enhance our capabilities for the protection of Chinese nationals overseas.
As the world’s second largest economy, we have extensive economic and personnel exchanges with the outside world. There are Chinese firms and workers even in some unstable countries. In these unstable countries, various opposition forces and organizations robbed foreign enterprises, hijacked and even killed foreigners to put pressure on governments for different purposes. Westerners used to be the subjects of such acts. But now we are being victimized.
Since China opened up to the outside world more than 30 years ago, more and more Chinese go overseas. It certainly is good news for Chinese enterprises to go abroad. However, they prefer to take Chinese workers to their overseas factories for a variety of reasons. 230,000 Chinese workers are reportedly working in Africa in Chinese enterprises in 2010. But the workers had little exchange with local people and estranged themselves from the local people and rendered themselves vulnerable.
Thus, an important historical task for the Chinese government and Chinese army is to provide maximum protection for overseas Chinese nationals. This is a responsibility of our country.
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