China’s Ohio Belt and Road, Linking Ohio Jobs to Undercut Labor
BY JEFF SKINNER
PATASKALA - In a previous article, TOR examined the machinations of one of the U.S. biggest international competitors, and their aims at influencing even local politics in Ohio. One of the most effective means of influencing a region is, of course, economics. Nowhere is that more prevalent than China’s Belt and Road initiative, which has begun paving ways in the small town of Pataskala.
The most concise way to explain what China’s Belt and Road initiative is would be to summarize Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has spearheaded the project. The aim is to use the old Silk Road trade routes, which previously linked China to the western world, facilitating trade in goods and services and solidified China as a central mercantile hub for the world. Today, the goal is to build on that design by linking China to developing nations in Africa and around the world. Some have criticized the initiative from China as being full of ulterior motives, specifically in undermining U.S. influence in the west or in developing nations. According to The Beacon, the infrastructure projects China invests in, often come with a price. “China uses loans to finance BRI projects, but some loans contain exploitative conditions, allowing China to seize economic assets from partner countries when they can’t pay back their debts,” The article says. “For instance, China acquired a long lease on a Sri Lankan port when the BRI-related debt piled up.”
According to the article’s author, China is using the infrastructure projects to solidify influence in developing nations with the expectation it will yield eastern influence within international bodies. An indebted nation will always vote for initiatives that benefit their debt holder.
While the article somewhat outdatedly compares the initiatives predatory loan dispersals to the U.S. historial Marshal plan to rebuild Europe, a more apt comparison would be with the tactics of the World Trade Organization, which essentially operate as a 1-to-1 comparison of what China is currently doing. Much like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, the World Trade Organization, or WTO, will issue loans for economic development to third world nations seeking assistance with some caveats, including high interest and the expectation of opening trade domestically in the nation to foreign companies to sell products domestically. These products however are often subsidized by the nations of origin, leading to a significant undercutting of the domestic profit of the nation that took the loan. The documentary “Life and Debt” chronicles the decade long struggle of Jamaica, which lost much of its sovereignty to taking loans from the WTO and allowing foreign banana companies to undercut its largest domestic cash crop, leading to economic ruin. In short, when the nation failed to make good on it’s debts, the WTO imposed the development of economic “free trade zones”, geographic territories which operate at times independent of the laws of the nations they exist in. While this tactic was used by the WTO to impose influence globally, it had been much protested in the west by the voting populations, most notably in the “Battle of Seattle” in 1999.
It would seem China has taken this tactic to heart though and has established an effective trade and mercantile route through a host of developing nations, giving it an effective route of transport for potentially anything from weapons, to the development of military bases and development as well as cheap labor. That last portion may be starting to take a stronghold in Pataskala.
TOR’s previous coverage of the controversy surrounding Illuminate USA, a Chinese backed green energy corporation which opened a manufacturing plant in Pataskala, Ohio, illustrated how foreign national influence into a region has come with somewhat of a price. Much like the BRI itself, which may seek to undermine the sovereignty of a developing nation or region, so to it seems is Illuminate USA beginning to undermine domestic labor with the importation of foreign H1B workers. After the factory opened in Pataskala to much fanfare of the “Ohio Jobs” it would be creating, the company has gone on in the past year to begin posting H1B position applications already bringing in foreign workers to take positions of minimal specialty. The five listed were filled just in September of 2024.
These positions are bachelor level positions, with some requiring little to no experience begging the question as to why foreign nationals were needed to fill them in a nation with such a large amount of unemployed college graduates, specifically in the STEM and engineering fields?
Ohio currently has around 6500 H1B approved applications according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website. The recent firestorm debate involving the MAGA leaning voting base and tech figureheads such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, has illustrated a significant rift between those in positions of power who are largely in favor of the H1B program as a means of importing cheap labor, and the working class population that recognizes its inherent undercutting of their value in the market. No one wishes to compete for a job around the corner from their house with 2 billion workers in India and China.
Whatever the reason for Illuminate USA seeking to undercut domestic labor in Ohio, it cannot be denied the economic impact immigration has on domestic labor. Illuminate USA is certainly beginning to live by the lessons of the BRI, and more eminently the WTO, move into a region, undercut the domestic markets and leave them needy and more susceptible to your next move.
