Tariff time: Free trade skepticism deeply rooted in US history – Asia Times

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One of the more surprising developments in recent American politics has been the backlash against free trade.

As recently as a decade ago, Democrats and Republicans alike generally favored free trade. But with the 2024 presidential election just days away, both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris are leaning hard on protectionism.

The Trump campaign in particular is promoting tariffs that would be difficult to imagine coming from a Republican presidential candidate just a decade ago.

This new post-neoliberal moment might seem confounding. But it hearkens back to economic policies – and political parties – from around the time of the nation’s founding, and it offers clues to our divided present.

Back in the late 18th century, the Founding Father Alexander Hamilton helped put in place a set of policies designed to encourage US industry and to promote economic development and innovation.

That arrangement, which laid the groundwork for what became known as the “American System,” emerged in part as a counterbalance to British conceptions of free trade. And the American System quickly grew as accepted economic policy as a young America developed its industrial strength.

Hamilton’s economic nationalism

In the early years of the republic, the US didn’t have much of a trade policy at all.

When the US officially achieved independence in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the Articles of Confederation – the nation’s first constitution – greatly limited the federal government’s powers, including its ability to regulate foreign trade.

These restrictions reflected the reality of 13 very different states that had been more united against the British – and their trade controls – than in support of a common vision of economic development.

The economic conditions within this loosely connected nation quickly worsened. A deepening economic crisis, rising debt, inflation, cheap British manufactured goods and rising bankruptcy soon emerged. Such changing conditions gave rise to calls for a new national economic policy.

This economic strain was an important factor leading to the drafting of the US Constitution, ratified in 1789. The Constitution gave the federal government the capacity to regulate trade with foreign countries and, for the first time, to collect taxes. Both were privileges once held exclusively by sovereign American states.

The ‘second American revolution’

A strengthened American Congress made passing a national Tariff Act one of its first tasks. When it was ratified in 1789, a national import tax replaced customs previously enacted by the states.

Perhaps indicating the magnitude of this change, supporters called it “the Second American Revolution,” passed as it was on July 4, 1789. In effect, it helped create a new conception of the American political and economic system, with a much stronger role for the state in economic matters.

Duties were levied on 30 commodities, including hemp and textiles. Perhaps foreshadowing trade policy of a future era, the Tariff Act also placed duties of 12.5% on goods imported from China and India.

The main architect of this new industrial policy was Hamilton, who released his seminal work on economic policy, Report on Manufactures, in 1791. Hamilton’s ideas were based on transforming a predominantly agricultural nation into one defined, at least in part, by growing and diversified industry.

Though often overlooked, Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures also contained a grander vision – it sought to encourage the development of American invention and ingenuity as a form of economic policy and argued for unlocking “the genius of the people” so that “the wealth of a nation may be promoted.”

To promote this spirit of national enterprise, Hamilton encouraged promoting technological progress, subsidizing research, attracting migrants, supporting a new financial system and implementing a patent system to promote invention. Such policies were in many ways an extension of previous policy enshrined in Section 8 of the Constitution.

Tariffs and their discontents

As the use of tariffs continued in the decades following Hamilton’s plan, policymakers turned increasingly protective in an attempt to more directly promote American industry. They enacted tariffs to insulate growing American industries from foreign competition, primarily from the UK.

By the early 19th century, this growing protectionist movement coalesced around the powerful Kentucky legislator Henry Clay and his Whig Party. Clay, who first referred to the American System by name, and his allies were instrumental in raising average national tariff rates to 20% in 1816.

When crisis appeared during the Panic of 1819, a collapse in cotton prices, a tightening of credit, widespread foreclosures and rising unemployment followed. In response, Clay and his allies raised tariff rates again, to 50% in 1828.

The increasing use of tariffs provoked a fierce response from some in the nation’s agricultural and slave-owning class, who objected to perceived Northern dominance and a strong federal government. One prominent Southern critic at the time referred to the 1828 tariff as the “tariff of abominations.”

Indeed, opposition to elements of the American System was one of the chief policy goals of early Democratic politicians such as Andrew Jackson, and fights over the system presaged later sectional fights leading up to the Civil War.

As an industrial revolution took root in American society in the decades that followed, tariffs remained a cornerstone of US economic policy. By the late 1850s, tariffs had become integrated into the policy of the newly formed Republican Party and an important plank of Abraham Lincoln’s economic platform.

Toward the end of the 19th century, a changing Democratic Party, supported increasingly by a strong agricultural populist movement, continued to largely oppose the tariff system, arguing it benefited powerful industrialists at the expense of the working class while offering little to counter economic crisis.

The breakup of the American System − and why it matters today

Between 1861 and 1933, tariffs were a standard tool of US economic policy. During this period, tariffs on dutiable goods often averaged 40% to 50%, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. US policymakers didn’t seriously question tariffs as a form of industrial policy until the deepening of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Following World War II, the US decisively shifted away from tariffs. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was widely blamed for deepening the Great Depression and contributing to the international conflicts of the 1930s and 1940s, effectively ending the protectionist era of U.S. industrial history.

The establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 provided policymakers with a novel tool – monetary policy – to deal with economic downturns. The Keynesian revolution provided still another policy response for governments to consider during periods of economic crisis: spending as fiscal stimulus to create jobs and income.

Finally, as postwar American policy embraced open global trade, American economic policy pursued more direct mechanisms to foster national innovation and entrepreneurship – effectively breaking up policy once dependent on activist trade intervention. With the elimination of tariffs, one of the great periods of American economic growth and innovation followed.

In 2024, the Republican platform has, in many ways, returned to its origins by offering tariffs as a key economic strategy. Likewise, the Democratic platform, with its skepticism of concentrated corporate power, coupled with a renewed focus on financial support for small businesses and entrepreneurship, echoes its own earlier generation.

As Americans head to the polls, it’s worth asking how current economic proposals with deep roots in the American System of old might help shape economic policy in the future.

Erik Guzik is assistant clinical professor of management, University of Montana

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Squid Game: Season 2 sees return of champion to deadly games

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No Ju-han/Netflix Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun, wearing a green tracksuit against a blue backgroundNo Ju-han/Netflix

The first trailer for the second season of Squid Game has been released, thrusting viewers back into the deadly arena where champion Seong Gi-hun has returned to play once more.

Three years after his victory in the lethal series of children’s games Gi-hun returns as Player 456 and is joined by hundreds of new players – and tries to lead them to safety.

The first season of the South Korean drama followed a group of 456 people, desperate and in debt, fighting to the death for a huge cash prize.

It became Netflix’s biggest ever series launch, streamed by 111 million users in its first 28 days.

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The trailer opens as the sinister masked guards welcome a new cast of characters to the competition.

They are despatched for their first game, also familiar from season one: Red Light Green Light.

Despite Gi-hun’s efforts to coach the players across the finish line to safety, things take a lethal turn.

As in season one, the players get to vote to stop the game or keep playing. While Gi-hun encourages them to focus on “getting out of this place,” the players ignore his pleas.

“One more game,” they chant, as the cash prize fills a giant piggy-bank dangling above them.

No Ju-han/Netflix Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun, wearing a green tracksuit and frowning at a guard wearing a hooded red suit.No Ju-han/Netflix

Director Hwang Dong-hyuk said: “Gi-hun’s endeavor to find out who these people are and why they do what they do is the core story of season two.”

Also returning is the black-masked mysterious Front Man, who oversees the games, and Hwang Jun-ho, the police detective that broke into the games last season to search for his missing brother.

Dong-hyuk previously said he felt “a lot of pressure” on how to make season two “even better” after the show’s runaway success.

Netflix has also announced that the final, third season will be released in 2025.

The second series of Squid Game will be released on Netflix on 26 December 2024.

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Beijing mulls buying unsold homes for 4 trillion yuan – Asia Times

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The Chinese government is said to be considering issuance in the next five years of 4 trillion yuan (US$561 billion) in special treasury bonds in order to fund the purchase of unsold homes and idle sites in an effort to reduce inventory in the markets and support property prices.

The issuance of these bonds will come on top of the previously-reported issuance of 6 trillion yuan in ultra-long special treasury bonds, which will be implemented over the next three years, Reuters reported. 

It is expected that these long-term money printing schemes will be discussed in the coming standing of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee between November 4 and 8. 

The meeting was originally scheduled for late October but it was postponed to November with some media reports saying that Beijing wants to make its final decision after the United States presidential election. 

In case the election’s winner is Republican candidate Donald Trump, who vowed to impose a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods, China may need a stronger stimulus package to maintain its economic growth for the next few years, Reuters reported, citing two unnamed sources.

Mysterious local debt figure

The news about China’s stimulus package came after Li Jianjun, vice president of the Central University of Finance and Economics and an economist, said in a public speech at the Financial Street Forum 2024 in Beijing on October 18 that China’s debt-to-GDP ratio had increased to about 103% as of the end of June this year.

Li’s comments were reported by foreign media only this week. They seemed different from Beijing’s propaganda in recent years claiming that China’s debt situation remained healthy.

Li said China’s local government financing vehicles (LGFV) loans and related shadow loans had grown to 57.16 trillion yuan as of June 30.

Since the early 2010s, local governments, property developers and LGFVs had formed an iron triangle to benefit from a decade-long property bubble, which burst in 2021 with the default of Evergrande Group.  

It is an open secret that China has so far accumulated what many foreign economists estimate to be more than 50 trillion yuan of LGFV loans. 

But it is the first time for this figure to be disclosed in an official way: The Financial Street Forum is jointly organized by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), Xinhua News Agency and other financial regulators. Besides, the Central University of Finance and Economics, in which Li is serving, is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education and the Beijing municipal government.

Li said China’s total debt, including 30 trillion yuan of central government loans and 42.23 trillion yuan of legally-issued local government loans, totaled 129 trillion yuan, which is more than China’s 2023 GDP of 126 trillion yuan. He added that the figure excludes the shadow loans guaranteed by local governments. 

He stressed that China’s debt-to-GDP ratio is now above the globally-recognized 60% representative threshold for high debt levels. 

He said more than 60% of Chinese provinces and municipalities, including Tianjin, Chongqing, Guizhou and Gansu, saw their debt-to-GDP ratios exceeded 300%. He said it is important to define clearly the role of local governments and markets and reduce governments’ influence in debt issuances.

Between the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and the first land auction in Shenzhen in 1987, all land use had to be approved by the Chinese government.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said in a press conference in 2018 that he had helped introduce Hong Kong’s land auction system to China and contributed to the country’s land reform and opening up. 

It was supposed to be a system in which local governments could receive fiscal revenue and manufacturers and property developers could get land resources. But most local governments ended up becoming overly reliant on land sales revenue to maintain operations.

Fareast Credit, a Shanghai-based credit rating agency, said in a research report in April 2022 that land sales revenue accounted for 41.47% of local governments’ fiscal income on average.

It said the levy of property tax would not be enough to offset the decline in local governments’ land sales revenue during a property down cycle. It said the central government should allow local governments to enjoy a bigger share in the country’s business and consumption taxes.  

300 million migrant workers

On September 21, Liu Shijin, a top economist and the former deputy president of the China State Council’s Development Research Center, said in a public event that the central government should raise 10 trillion yuan by issuing ultra-long special treasury bonds within one to two years. 

He said the central government should use the proceeds from bond issuance to buy up unsold homes from the markets in the short run and accelerate urbanization over the medium term. 

His comments, followed by the PBoC’s interest rate and reserve requirement ratio cuts, had contributed to the stock market rally in mainland China and Hong Kong between late September and early October.

Caixin reported on October 14 that the Finance Ministry planned to issue 6 trillion yuan of ultra-long special treasury bonds in the coming three years to ease the local debt crisis. 

On Tuesday, Reuters confirmed that there will be another 4 trillion yuan bond issuance to fund the purchase of unsold homes over the next five years.

Coincidentally on the same day, Liu commented about China’s stimulus package at a forum organized by Tsinghua University’s Institute for China Sustainable Urbanization. 

He said the new money from bond issuance should be spent on providing basic needs for about 300 million migrant workers, rather than subsidizing urban residents to “buy a few more pieces of bread.” 

He admitted that more than 900 million people in China are low income. He said China needs to boost its middle income population from the current 400 million to 800-900 million in the next decade in order to maintain moderate economic growth for a longer term and overcome the limitations of insufficient demand. 

Meanwhile, China’s economy also showed signs of stabilizing after Beijing announced its stimulus package.

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) increased to 50.1 in October, higher than a forecast of 49.9 by economists, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Non-manufacturing PMI rose to 50.2 in October, up from 50 in September. 

Read: Market unsatisfied with Beijing’s 6 trillion yuan stimulus

Follow Jeff Pao on X: @jeffpao3

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How China can revive its bruised and dwindling billionaire class – Asia Times

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Is the “smart” money still fleeing China? Whether it’s wise to leave Asia’s biggest economy is debatable. What’s not is that the mainland billionaire emigration trend continues and that their ranks have thinned by more than a third in just the last three years.

The latter dynamic, tracked by research group Hurun, spotlights how the fallout from the last few years of government crackdowns, slowing economic growth, volatile equities and property collapse is catching up with Xi Jinping’s policymakers and complicating their efforts to counter Wall Street worries that China has become “uninvestable.”

To be sure, the “avoid-China” vibe isn’t what it was, say, six months ago. As Nicholas Colas, co-founder of research firm DataTrek, notes, the recent “surprise announcement of aggressive fiscal and monetary policy action is spurring a reappraisal of the view” that Chinese equities are uninvestable.

“China’s leadership has finally acknowledged that the country’s economy needs much more monetary and fiscal stimulus if it is to achieve its growth potential over time,” Colas says.

Billionaire David Tepper has been making his own headlines by declaring it time to buy “everything” in China. And after “running around the world” in recent weeks, Kinger Lau, chief China equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, says that “for some investors who haven’t really looked at China over the past one to two years, certainly, the interest level has picked up a lot”

As Lau tells the South China Morning Post, “I’m not saying everyone is buying. But the level of interest has picked up a lot, very much consistent with the flows and positioning.” He’s among many who now see “upside” for Chinese equities.

Where this leaves China’s remaining billionaires in US dollar terms – Hurun says there are now 753 versus a peak of 1,185 in 2021 – is debatable. What’s clear, though, is that the stakes surrounding next week’s gathering of the standing committee of National People’s Congress are rising.

Rarely has there been a better opportunity for Xi’s inner circle to reassure the billionaire set at home and global funds abroad.

“The announcement of the NPC Standing Committee meeting for November 4-8 reflects Beijing’s strategic approach to the major economic policy U-turn underway,” says economist Diana Choyleva at Enodo Economics.

Choyleva noted that “by scheduling the meeting immediately after the US presidential election on November 5, the Chinese leadership has positioned itself to announce fiscal measures with full knowledge of the electoral outcome, enhancing its ability to manage market expectations and responses effectively.”

Next week’s confab will “allow Chinese policymakers to fine-tune their announcements and potentially adjust the scale or presentation of stimulus measures based on the new geopolitical context,” she says.

Choyleva notes that “a better-coordinated approach to policy announcements could actually enhance market stability. Investors should view the timing as a sign of careful planning rather than delay, particularly given the potential for more comprehensive and strategically calibrated announcements.”

Billionaires and global funds alike are craving a “well-thought-out approach” that “sets the stage for more impactful and sustainable market responses,” Choyleva says. “For investors, this timing and a more coordinated policymaking reduces uncertainty by ensuring that China’s fiscal response will be announced with full knowledge of the US political landscape, potentially leading to more stable and sustained market reactions rather than volatile short-term responses.”

The potential wildcard of a Donald Trump 2.0 presidency would be a game-changer for Asia, starting with a 60% tax on all Chinese goods that would upend Asian growth and supply chains.

Derek Holt, Bank of Nova Scotia’s head of capital markets economics, speaks for many when he warns that “Trump’s plans risk being highly destabilizing to world markets in a much more fractured world.”

Investors everywhere are bracing for a supersized US trade war in the event of a second Trump White House, including Europe. Germany’s recession is already casting a pall over European markets.

“In a worst-case scenario of a full-blown tariff war with retaliation, we estimate potential for a mid to high single-digit drag on European earnings-per-share growth,” says Barclays Plc strategist Emmanuel Cau. A “big chunk” of analysts’ worry more than 10% growth in earnings next year could disappear as trade tensions spike, he notes.

One worry is Trump’s desire to add fiscal stimulus via giant tax cuts into an economy that doesn’t need it. “The US economy doesn’t need pump-priming, it’s in excess demand and will remain there next year,” Holt notes. And while “the US needs to assert control over its borders, Trump’s extreme immigration policies would severely damage the US economy.”

Trump’s desire to weaken the US dollar also would increase inflation risks, complicating hopes the Federal Reserve might cut interest rates. Not that Vice President Kamala Harris has a great track record in global market circles, Holt notes. As a US senator in 2020, Harris was one of only a few lawmakers who voted against a revised US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

In Holt’s view, “it’s a matter of picking the one you think will be less damaging. As a professional economist, I have no doubt that this means voting against Donald Trump and the weak self-serving men behind him.”

Yet risks abound as the US national debt tops the US$35 trillion mark. “America’s fiscal position is living on borrowed time and the more damage that’s done now, the higher taxes will go in the future in a potentially more divided and more dangerous world,” Holt explains.

Reassuring China’s billionaires and overseas funds requires bold and transparent action by Xi’s inner circle. 

Earlier this month, Beijing cut borrowing costs, slashed banks’ reserve requirement ratios, reduced mortgage rates and unveiled market-support tools to put a floor under share prices. Beijing is telegraphing bolder fiscal stimulus steps.

Team Xi also raised the loan quota for unfinished housing projects to 4 trillion yuan (US$562 billion), nearly double the previous amount. The bump was less than markets wanted, but pledges of more come has limited big negative market reactions.

The bigger issue, though, is repairing the balance sheets of giant property developers. Success in devising a mechanism to dispose of toxic assets could go a long way toward reassuring investors.

Xi’s inner circle has surely demonstrated it knows what’s needed to turn things around and reassure its capitalist class: a clear strategy to strengthen the finances of good-quality developers; incentivizing mergers and acquisitions; improving capital markets so that consumers stop seeing property as their only investment option; creating social safety nets so that households spend more and save less.

Beijing also must allay concerns that the tech crackdowns that began in late 2020 are over and done with.

Xi has left it to Premier Li Qiang to make the case for a more dynamic, competitive and predictable China. In January, Li said that “choosing investment in the Chinese market is not a risk, but an opportunity.”

He stressed that “investing in China will bring huge returns and a better future” and described CEOs on hand as “participants, witnesses, and beneficiaries of China’s reform and opening up.”

China, Li added, “stands ready to seriously look into and solve the difficulties and problems encountered by foreign enterprises” operating in the country. “We will take active steps to address reasonable concerns of the global business community,” Li said.

The bottom line, says Fred Hu, CEO of Primavera Capital Group, is that if China “really commits to rule of law and market reforms, I do think the confidence will slowly but surely come back, then the animal spirit will be rekindled.”

One reason the clock is ticking in Xi’s reform plans is that the 10-year mark of his “Made in China 2025” scheme is fast approaching.

When he took the reins of power in 2012, Xi promised to let market forces play a “decisive” role in Beijing’s decision-making. In May 2015, Xi unveiled his ambitious plan to morph China into a high-tech Mecca for semiconductors, renewable energy, electric vehicles, biotechnology, aerospace, artificial intelligence, robotics and green infrastructure.

A decade on, progress has been more sporadic than hoped. Team Xi has often proved better at treating the symptoms of China’s economic funk, not the underlying ailment. 

It’s a lesson Japan taught the world: throwing money at an economy traumatized by plunging property values and deflationary pressures won’t work without supply-side moves to repair cracks in the economy.

Late last year, Xi introduced the buzz-phrase “new quality productive forces.” Though somewhat cryptic, Xi’s inner circle has been selling it as the answer to China’s economic future.

China wants to get its consumers to spend more and save less to keep growth near 5% year after year. That means continuing to raise incomes and building more robust social safety nets to encourage spending. It means creating deeper, trusted capital markets so the average Chinese can invest in stocks and bonds — not just real estate.

Beijing’s extreme focus on boosting consumption over the years has proved counterproductive, economists say. It leaves China susceptible to boom-and-bust cycles that require urgent attention at the expense of moving the economy upmarket. China’s heavy reliance on exports leaves the economy vulnerable to Trump-like antics.

There’s no better alternative to accelerating and broadening China’s evolution into a high-tech powerhouse, development experts say. And indications are, this is precisely the pivot Xi and Li are making as 2025 approaches.

At the NPC in March, Xi’s Communist Party said “it’s imperative to boost the endeavors to modernize the industrial system, and accelerate the development of new productive forces.” Billionaires skittish about China’s prospects couldn’t agree more. The days and weeks ahead offer Xi a ready opportunity to do just that.

Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek

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Commentary: A possible Trump win muddies an already-chaotic economic debate in China

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WILL BEIJING’S PRIORITIES CHANGE?

Until recently, Xi’s stimulus was entirely a domestic affair.

Ministry-level officials have promised the largest one-time debt swap in recent years to improve municipal finances. The state will also buy unsold housing to stabilise property prices, as well as boost banks’ capital buffer to increase their willingness to lend in a weak economy.

All these are sensible blueprints to lift China out of deflation. 

But a Trump win can change Beijing’s priorities again. His hawkish rhetoric on Chinese imports, as well as the wide latitude that the US president enjoys in setting and imposing tariffs, directly threatens Xi’s ultimate passion of transforming China into a high-end manufacturing powerhouse.

China has certainly reacted to Trump’s moves before. After Huawei was placed on the US trade blacklist in 2019, state resources were poured into industrial upgrades. Huawei alone received over US$1 billion in government grants last year, more than quadruple the amount in 2019, in part a reflection that President Joe Biden has furthered Trump’s tough trade policies. 

Bank lending to industrial firms has also soared in that time; meanwhile, real estate developers are struggling to refinance. In July, the government said it would spend 300 billion yuan (US$42 billion) to expand an existing trade-in and equipment upgrade programme as a way to boost consumption but also to absorb industrial production.

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Palestine’s economy teeters on the brink after year of war – Asia Times

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The Palestinian economy has been devastated beyond recognition. Israel’s intense military operations in Gaza have led to unprecedented destruction, wiping out much of the enclave’s essential infrastructure, private property and agricultural resources.

Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank is also under severe strain. Similar patterns of destruction, alongside rising settler violence, land confiscations and expanding settlements, have left its economy buckling under the pressure of mounting public debt, unemployment and poverty.

Gaza’s economy was being suffocated even before the war. A blockade imposed by Israel in 2007 has severely restricted the import and export of goods, while fishermen were limited to a six-mile zone, crippling their ability to earn a livelihood.

The blockade caused Gaza’s GDP per capita (a measure of the wealth of a country) to shrink by 27% between 2006 and 2022, with unemployment rising to 45.3%. This gave rise to a situation where 80% of the population depended on international aid.

In addition to the economic blockade, Gaza suffered massive physical destruction due to Israeli military operations in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2022. Yet the cumulative effects of 16 years of blockade and military attacks are minor compared to the sheer destruction caused by the current war.

A report by the UN’s trade and development wing (Unctad) has revealed that in the space of just eight months, between October 2023 and May 2024, Gaza’s GDP per capita fell by more than half. The economic situation now is almost certainly worse.

According to the report, which was released in September 2024, Gaza’s GDP dropped by 81% in the final quarter of 2023 alone. The report concluded that the war had left Gaza’s economy in “utter ruin,” warning that even if there was an immediate ceasefire and the 2007–2022 growth trend of 0.4% returns, it would take 350 years just to restore the GDP levels of 2022.

A graph showing the sharp drop in Gaza's GDP after October 2023.

The only sectors still functioning are health and humanitarian services. All other industries, including agriculture, are at a near standstill. The destruction of between 80% and 96% of agricultural assets has led to rampant food insecurity.

The scale of destruction in Gaza is unprecedented in modern times and is happening under the world’s gaze. From October 2023 to January 2024 alone, the total cost of damage reached approximately US$18.5 billion – equivalent to seven times Gaza’s GDP in 2022.

A separate report by the UN Development Program, which was published in May, predicts that it will take more than 80 years to rebuild just Gaza’s housing stock if it repeats the rate of restructuring seen after Israeli military operations in 2014 and 2021. Merely clearing the debris could take up to 14 years.

The war has displaced almost all of Gaza’s population and has thrown people into dire poverty. Unemployment surged to 80%, leaving most households without any source of income. And prices of basic commodities have increased by 250%, which is contributing to famine across the Strip.

Palestinians walking down a street in Gaza that has been destroyed during the war.
The Gaza Strip is in ruins after more than a year of relentless bombardment. Photo: Anas-Mohammed / Shutterstock via The Conversation

The economic crisis has also extended to the West Bank, where GDP has fallen sharply. Military checkpoints, cement blocks and iron gates at the entrances to Palestinian towns and cities, as well as the denial of work permits for Palestinians in Israeli settlements, have resulted in more than 300,000 job losses since the start of the war.

The Unctad report reveals that the rate of unemployment in the West Bank has tripled to 32% since the start of the conflict, with labor income losses amounting to $25.5 million. Poverty is rising rapidly.

Israeli forces have also continued to confiscate Palestinian homes and land. Over the past year alone, 24,000 acres of land in the West Bank have been seized, and over 2,000 Palestinians have been displaced.

This devastation has been exacerbated by Israel’s decision to withhold the tax revenue it collects for the Palestinian Authority, which typically accounts for between 60% and 65% of the Palestinian public budget, as well as a significant decline in international aid. Aid to Palestine has dropped drastically over the past decade or so, falling from the equivalent of US$2 billion in 2008 to just $358 million by 2023.

The Palestinian Authority is facing a massive budget deficit, which is projected to increase by 172% in 2024 compared to the previous year. This financial strain has crippled the Palestinian government’s ability to provide essential services, pay salaries and meet the needs of a population battered by war, displacement and severe poverty.

The road to recovery

For the Palestinian economy to have any chance at recovery, several immediate steps are necessary.

First, international aid should flow into Gaza uninterrupted, and pressure must be applied to ensure that humanitarian aid – particularly food aid – reaches those in need. Data analysis by organizations working in Gaza suggests that Israel is currently blocking 83% of food aid from reaching Gaza.

Second, the destruction of homes, schools and infrastructure must cease. However, this seems improbable as Israel continues to pursue its military goal of destroying Hamas – an objective most analysts believe to be unachievable.

And third, the economic restrictions imposed on Gaza and the West Bank must be lifted. Sustainable development – and any prospect for recovery – cannot be achieved without granting the Palestinian people the right to self-determination and sovereignty over their resources.

This would require new peace agreements, an outcome that appears unlikely at present. But without these crucial interventions, the Palestinian economy will be completely devastated and the humanitarian crisis will worsen, making any future recovery within the lifetime of anyone currently living in Gaza virtually impossible to imagine.

Dalia Alazzeh is lecturer in accounting and finance, University of the West of Scotland and Shahzad Uddin is professor of accounting, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Channel migrants: Vietnamese smugglers selling ‘priority’ service

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BBC A zoomed in image taken from our undercover filming of a Vietnamese people smuggler, hair dyed blonde, walking behind a fenceBBC

The Vietnamese people smuggler emerged, briefly and hesitantly, from the shadows of a scraggly forest close to the northern French coastline.

“Move away from the others. Come this way, fast,” he said, gesturing across a disused railway line to a member of our team, who had spent weeks posing undercover as a potential customer.

Moments later, the smuggler – a tall figure with bright dyed blonde hair – turned away sharply, like a startled fox, and vanished down a narrow path into the woods.

Earlier this year, Vietnam emerged – abruptly – as the biggest single source of new migrants seeking to cross the Channel to the UK illegally in small boats. Arrivals surged from 1,306 in the whole of 2023, to 2,248 in the first half of 2024.

Our investigation – including interviews with Vietnamese smugglers and clients, French police, prosecutors and charities – reveals how Vietnamese migrants are paying double the usual rate for an “elite” small boat smuggling experience that is faster and more streamlined. As the death toll in the Channel hits a record level this year, there are some indications that it might be safer too.

As part of our work to penetrate the Vietnamese operations, we met an experienced smuggler who is operating in the UK and forging documents for migrants seeking to reach Europe. Separately, our undercover reporter – posing as a Vietnamese migrant – arranged, by phone and text, to meet a smuggling gang operating in the woods near Dunkirk in order to find out how the process works.

“A small boat service is £2,600. Payment to be made after you arrive in the UK,” the smuggler, who called himself Bac, texted back. We heard similar figures from other sources. We believe Bac may be a senior figure in a UK-based gang and the boss of Tony, the blonde man in the woods.

He had given us instructions about the journey from Europe to the UK, explaining how many migrants first flew from Vietnam to Hungary – where we understand it is currently relatively easy for them to get a legitimate work visa, often obtained using forged documents. Bac said that the migrants then travelled on to Paris and then to Dunkirk.

“Tony can pick you up at the [Dunkirk] station,” he offered, in a later text.

Vietnamese migrants are widely considered to be vulnerable to networks of trafficking groups. These groups may seek to trap them in debt and force them to pay off those debts by working in cannabis farms or other businesses in the UK.

It is clear, from several recent visits to the camps around Dunkirk and Calais, that the Vietnamese gangs and their clients operate separately from other groups.

“They keep to themselves and are much more discreet than the others. We see them very little,” says Claire Millot, a volunteer for Salam, an NGO that supports migrants in Dunkirk.

A trestle table in the foreground with cups on, tents pitched neatly behind, and washing hanging from a line

A volunteer with another charity tells us of recently catching a rare glimpse of roughly 30 Vietnamese buying life jackets at a Dunkirk branch of the sports gear chain Decathlon.

As well as keeping their distance, the streamlined service offered by the Vietnamese gangs involves far less waiting around in the camps. Many African and Middle Eastern migrants spend weeks, even months, in grim conditions on the French coast. Some don’t have enough cash to pay for a place on a small boat, and try to earn their fare by working for the smuggling gangs. Many are intercepted on the beaches by French police and have to make several attempts before they successfully cross the Channel.

On a recent visit we saw dozens of tired families – from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Eritrea and elsewhere – gathering in the drizzle at a muddy spot where humanitarian groups provide daily meals and medical assistance. A group of children played Connect 4 at a picnic table, while a man sought treatment for a wound to his arm. Several parents told us that they had heard about a four-month-old Kurdish boy who had drowned the previous night after the boat he was travelling in capsized during an attempted Channel crossing. None of them said the death would discourage them from making their own attempt.

There were no Vietnamese in sight. It seems clear that Vietnamese smugglers tend to bring their clients to the camps in northern France when the weather is already looking promising and a crossing is imminent.

We had first encountered the new influx of Vietnamese migrants earlier this year, stumbling on one of their camps near Dunkirk. It appeared to be significantly neater and more organised than other migrant camps, with matching tents pitched in straight lines and a group cooking a tantalising and elaborate meal involving fried garlic, onions and Vietnamese spices.

“They’re very organised and united and stay together in the camps. They’re quite something. When they arrive at the coast, we know that a crossing will be done very quickly. These are most likely people with more money than others,” says Mathilde Potel, the French police chief heading the fight against illegal migration in the region.

The Vietnamese do not control the small boat crossings themselves, which are largely overseen by a handful of Iraqi Kurdish gangs. Instead they negotiate access and timings.

“The Vietnamese are not allowed to touch that part of the process [the crossing]. We just deliver clients to [the Kurdish gangs],” says another Vietnamese smuggler, who we are calling Thanh, currently living in the UK. He tells us the extra cash secures priority access to the small boats for their Vietnamese clients.

While the relative costs are clear, the issue of safety is murkier. It is a fact – and perhaps a telling one – that during the first nine months of 2024, not a single Vietnamese was among the dozens of migrants confirmed to have died while trying to cross the Channel. But in October, a Vietnamese migrant did die in one incident, in what has now become the deadliest year on record for small boat crossings.

It is possible that by paying extra, the Vietnamese are able to secure access to less crowded boats, which are therefore less likely to sink. But we’ve not been able to confirm this.

What does seem clearer is that the Vietnamese smugglers are cautious about sending their clients out on boats in bad weather. Texts from Bac to our undercover reporter included specific suggestions regarding travel to the camp, and the best day to arrive.

“Running a small boat service depends on the weather. You need small waves. And it must be safe… We had good weather earlier this week and lots of boats left… It would be good if you can be here [in Dunkirk] tomorrow. I’m planning a [cross-Channel] move on Thursday morning,” Bac texted.

Sitting outside their tents in two separate camps in the woods near Dunkirk earlier this month, two young men told us almost identical stories about the events which had prompted them to leave Vietnam in order to seek new lives. How they had borrowed money to start small businesses in Vietnam, how those businesses had failed, and how they had then borrowed more money from relatives and loan sharks, to pay smugglers to bring them to the UK.

“Life in Vietnam is difficult. I couldn’t find a proper job. I tried to open a shop, but it failed. I was unable to pay back the loan, so I must find a way to earn money. I know this [is illegal] but I have no other option. I owe [the Vietnamese equivalent of] £50,000. I sold my house, but it wasn’t enough to pay off the debt,” said Tu, 26, reaching down to stroke a kitten that strolled past.

Two chickens emerged from behind another tent. A mirror hung from a nearby tree. Plug sockets were available under a separate awning for charging phones.

A migrant hiding his face, his back to the camera, in a grey hooded jacket

The second migrant, aged 27, described how he had reached Europe via China, sometimes on foot or in trucks.

“I heard from my friends in the UK that life is much better there, and I can find a way to make some money,” said the man, who did not want to give his name.

Are these people victims of human trafficking? It is unclear. All the Vietnamese migrants we spoke to said they were in debt. If they ended up working for the smuggling gangs in the UK in order to pay for their journey and to pay off their debts then they would, indeed, have been trafficked.

We had sought to draw the blonde Vietnamese smuggler, Tony, out of a nearby forest and onto more neutral territory, where his gang – possibly armed, as other gangs certainly are – might pose less of a threat to us. We intended to confront him about his involvement in a lucrative and often deadly criminal industry. But Tony remained wary of leaving his own “turf” and grew impatient and angry when our colleague, still posing as a potential migrant, declined to follow him into the forest.

“Why are you staying there? Follow that path. Move quickly! Now,” Tony ordered.

There was a brief pause. The sound of birdsong drifted across the clearing.

“What an idiot… Do you just want to stand there and get caught by the police?” the smuggler asked, with rising exasperation.

Then he turned away and retreated into the woods.

Had our colleague been a genuine migrant, she would probably have followed Tony. We were told by other sources that once in the camps, migrants were not allowed to leave unless they paid hundreds of dollars to the smugglers.

The Vietnamese gangs may be promising a quick, safe, “elite” route to the UK, but the reality is much darker – a criminal industry, backed by threats, involving deadly risks and no guarantee of success.

Additional reporting by Kathy Long and Léa Guedj

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Ex-teacher, jailed for voyeurism, studies law but withdraws Bar application after objections arise

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SINGAPORE: A former teacher who filmed victims using urinals – including his male colleague and a 16-year-old student – was sentenced to jail but went on to study law after his release. 

At the age of 50 in May 2023, Mr Mohamad Shafee Khamis applied to be admitted as an advocate and solicitor, but was met with objections from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education (SILE).

Mr Mohamad Shafee later withdrew his application, with the court allowing it and imposing a minimum exclusionary period of two years, which means he cannot apply to be admitted within this period.

According to a judgment made available on Monday (Oct 28), Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said this was the first case where a person applying to be a lawyer had been convicted of serious sexual offences and served his sentence.

“At one level, this might suggest that he has paid his debt to society, been rehabilitated, and was ready to be reintegrated as a member of society,” said the Chief Justice.

However, he said it was necessary to consider whether admitting him at this time “presented a real risk of undermining public trust in the legal profession and the administration of justice”, and whether more time was needed “for the court and the stakeholders to be assured that he was a fit and proper person for admission into the profession”.

THE CASE

Mr Mohamad Shafee was a teacher at an unidentified school in Singapore until April 2018, when he resigned.

He later pleaded guilty to four charges, with another six taken into consideration, and was sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail and a fine of S$2,000 in March 2022.

He had filmed a 31-year-old male police officer showering in his condominium’s clubhouse toilet, a 51-year-old male teacher using a urinal in the school they both taught at, and a 16-year-old male student using a urinal.

He also filmed a student changing in the school toilet, and had 128 obscene films.

It was accepted that Mr Mohamad Shafee was suffering from multiple psychiatric conditions at the time of the offences, including severe depression and voyeuristic disorder.

He did not appeal against the decision, but served his sentence from Apr 19 to Jun 4 in 2022. 

From July 2019 to June 2022, Mr Mohamad Shafee enrolled in the Juris Doctor (JD) programme at Singapore Management University and graduated with a JD (High Merit).

From January to July in 2023, he undertook and completed his practice training with Vanilla Law, with Mr Goh Aik Leng as his supervising solicitor.

He then applied to be admitted to the Bar, but the AGC, LawSoc and SILE raised objections, relying heavily on his alleged shortcomings in his disclosures.

The three stakeholders also asked Mr Mohamad Shafee multiple questions, such as whether he had disclosed his offences to the Ministry of Education (MOE) and whether MOE had taken any disciplinary action against him.

Mr Mohamad Shafee stated that MOE had not taken any disciplinary action and that he had not disclosed the offences to MOE or any other staff members at the school.

In response to other questions, Mr Mohamad Shafee said he had not disclosed the offences to SMU, as it had not occurred to him that he was obliged to do so.

He said he had disclosed the offences to his character referees, but not his supervising solicitor, explaining that the firm had not asked him whether he had any criminal antecedents.

After reviewing the replies, AGC wrote to Mr Mohamad Shafee to say his offences “clearly (demonstrate) a deficit of probity, integrity and trustworthiness” and that it would object to his application for admission.

AGC submitted that Mr Mohamad Shafee should be given a minimum exclusionary period of at least four years. 

“The AGC did not premise its case directly on any breach of the duty of candour though it seemed to rely on the applicant’s alleged shortcomings in his disclosures to support its case that the character defects revealed by his offences remain unresolved,” noted the Chief Justice.

AGC argued that Mr Mohamad Shafee had “a tendency to suppress details of his past wrongdoings wherever possible, in the hope that they would not come to light, which demonstrated a lack of insight into the gravity of his wrongdoing”.

LawSoc asked for a minimum exclusionary period of not less than two years, but not more than three years, saying that Mr Mohamad Shafee’s character issues “stemmed from his lack of candour” and not a lack of rehabilitative progress.

SILE’s position was broadly aligned with the AGC’s, noting the selectiveness of Mr Mohamad Shafee’s disclosures about his offences – omitting his supervising solicitor.

Mr Mohamad Shafee did not file any written submissions but gave his position in an affidavit, where he wrote: “While I respect the position taken by the AGC, I am nonetheless very disappointed and much saddened that my admission to the Bar will have to be delayed.”

He said he had registered himself as a volunteer with Action for Aids, describing this as a course of action to resolve and or prevent a reoccurrence of his persistent depressive disorder with anxious distress and voyeuristic disorder.

He wrote that he would “continue to reflect and seek to achieve an enhanced understanding of the ethical implications of my actions”, and that his efforts will ensure that by the time he made a fresh application, he would be “ready to provide such information in relation to these respects as may be required”.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE’S FINDINGS

Chief Justice Menon said it was not clear to him that the concerns raised by the stakeholders were entirely valid. Rather, there was “nothing to suggest that the applicant had tried to suppress the fact of his offences”.

“As I saw it, each time a clarification or further documentation had been sought from the applicant, he had complied to the extent that he could,” said the judge.

He was not persuaded that Mr Mohamad Shafee’s “attitude towards his disclosures could be said to be suggestive of a lack of ethical insight into or an abrogation of his responsibility for the offences”.

Chief Justice Menon added that the fact that he had not disclosed his misconduct to his supervising solicitor was not relevant to the current inquiry, as there was no express provision for a trainee solicitor to disclose previous convictions to the supervising solicitor.

He noted that Mr Mohamad Shafee had maintained a clean record for six years since the offences, enrolling in and graduating from law school before passing the Bar exams.

“The fact that the applicant maintained a clean record amidst the not insignificant amount of stress that comes with pursuing a course of legal study and professional training, while concurrently navigating the criminal justice process, struck me as significant and suggested that real progress was being made,” said the judge.

He said this was particularly significant because his inability to cope with stress from his workload as a teacher had been identified in medical evidence as significant contributors to the offences.

However, the Chief Justice accepted that “he had some distance to go, principally on account of the gravity of the offences and the consequent need for the court to be entirely satisfied that he had been fully rehabilitated”. 

Although Mr Mohamad Shafee had served a sentence of 10 weeks’ jail for his offences, the judge said “this was one of those cases where in the eyes of the public, the admission of the applicant might reasonably give rise to concerns as to the standards of probity and virtue expected of members in the legal profession, which is an integral pillar in the administration of justice”.

“This, however, had to be carefully weighed against the significant length of time which had since elapsed in which the applicant had maintained a clean record,” said the judge.

In conclusion, he found that some time was needed despite the considerable progress already made, before Mr Mohamad Shafee could be entrusted as an officer of the court.

“I concluded that a minimum exclusionary period of two years was appropriate in the circumstances. Assuming the applicant stays the course and maintains his clean record, he will have stayed free of crime and maintained a productive and rehabilitative path for eight years, and this seemed sufficient to address the remaining concerns,” said the Chief Justice.

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Smuggler reveals how he has helped more than 1,000 people cross Channel

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Reuters An aerial view of an inflatable dinghy overcrowded with migrants, motoring through the sea.Reuters

A prolific Vietnamese people smuggler, who entered the UK illegally this year in a small boat, has told the BBC he forges visa documents for other Vietnamese who plan to make the same crossing.

The man, whom we are calling Thanh, is now claiming UK asylum and told us he has spent almost 20 years – his entire adult life – in the smuggling industry.

He has been in prison, led a gang working on the northern coast of France, and claims to have helped more than 1,000 people to risk their lives to cross the Channel.

The self-confessed criminal met the BBC at a secret location to share detailed information about the mechanics of the international smuggling industry.

‘A very lucrative business’

Thanh walks into the room cautiously, dark eyes moving fast as if searching for possible exit routes. A small, neat, quietly authoritative figure in a black polo neck.

There are handshakes and he says “hello” in a soft, strongly accented voice. Beyond that, we speak almost exclusively through a Vietnamese translator.

After months of phone calls and one brief meeting, the interview takes place on a grey day in a small hotel room, in a northern English town that we are choosing not to name here.

We decided there was a strong public interest in hearing about Thanh’s life in the smuggling trade, which could only be secured in return for agreeing to keep his identity confidential. He fears being recognised not only by the British authorities but by Vietnamese criminals in the UK.

Vietnam emerged in the first months of this year – suddenly and unexpectedly – as the largest single source of migrants seeking to cross the Channel to the UK illegally in small boats.

Many Vietnamese migrants have cited failing businesses and debts at home for their decision to seek work in the UK. Their first step, experts have suggested, is often to access Europe by taking advantage of a legal work visa system in Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe.

This is where Thanh’s forgery operation comes in, he says. He helps create the fake paperwork needed to get the legitimate work visas.

“I can’t justify breaking the law. But it’s a very lucrative business,” Thanh said calmly, insisting he doesn’t provide forgeries for people seeking UK visas.

We know from our interviews with Vietnamese smugglers and their clients that people pay between $15,000 (£11,570) and $20,000 (£15,470) to travel from Vietnam to mainland Europe and then to cross the Channel.

It is a dangerous business. More than 50 people have been killed crossing the Channel in small boats already this year, making 2024 the deadliest on record. For the first time, the figures include one Vietnamese.

When our team first made contact with Thanh in mainland Europe earlier this year, we knew he was going to attempt to get to the UK with other Vietnamese. He later let us know he had crossed the Channel from northern France, in a small boat.

Thanh told us he had first flown from Vietnam to Hungary on a legitimate visa – although he had acquired it using forged documents.

He had then flown on to Paris and stayed for a few days in a “safe house”, organised by a Vietnamese smuggling gang on the city’s outskirts. Soon after then, he was taken in a group by minibus to the coast and, finally, put in the hands of one of the Kurdish gangs that control the small boat crossings.

“Once you’re on the boat, you get treated like everyone else,” he said. “It’s overcrowded.”

But the Vietnamese passengers pay three or four times more money to the gangs handling the crossing routes, he told us, “so we get the advantage of being given a place more quickly”.

In fact, our sources suggest the Vietnamese pay roughly twice the usual rate.

The journey Thanh described is now an established route from Vietnam to the UK – a path heavily promoted by smugglers on Facebook, who charge clients for forged documents, flights, buses, and a place on a flimsy rubber boat. Payment for a successful Channel crossing is only made after arrival in the UK.

And Thanh had been lucky, he told us, evading French police patrolling the beaches near Calais, and crossing in an inflatable boat on his first attempt.

Or perhaps he tried several times. Over the months that we were in contact with him, he changed elements of the story he told us – perhaps to cover his tracks and to avoid giving potential clues about his identity to the UK authorities.

‘Yes. A lie. I was not trafficked’

Thanh asked for asylum when he was interviewed by a British immigration official – explaining he had left Vietnam because he had got into debt to gangsters when his business failed. His life, he said, was in danger.

He told the official he had been trafficked to the UK in order to work for a gang to pay off his debt.

We had heard similar stories from the Vietnamese we encountered in northern France.

When we first established contact with Thanh, he portrayed himself as a desperate migrant, first stuck in France, and then trapped in the UK’s asylum system, living in a crowded hotel, unable to work, and waiting to learn his fate.

But over time, we began to learn the truth. Or rather, Thanh began to reveal the extent to which his extraordinary life story has been built on a series of elaborate, even outrageous, lies.

Sitting opposite me on a sofa, Thanh admitted that he had not been trafficked to the UK. He had made up that story as part of his asylum claim. And he went much further, claiming that all the Vietnamese migrants he knew of had been told to offer a version of the same lie.

“Yes. A lie. I was not trafficked,” he said.

Migration experts and NGOs have a range of views about the scale of trafficking from Vietnam.

One French prosecutor told us that many Vietnamese were in debt to the smugglers and ended up working in UK cannabis farms. But he played down the idea of an organised supply chain, insisting the smuggling system was more like a haphazard series of stepping stones, with each stage controlled by separate gangs. Finding work in the UK was, he said, about luck and opportunism.

Other experts insist that many, if not most, Vietnamese migrants are victims of trafficking, and that those being taken across the Channel are in fact a cheap and easy source of labour for criminal gangs in the UK. A government registry of people suspected of being victims of modern slavery has consistently shown a high number of Vietnamese.

“It is often not possible, or helpful, to differentiate when a person has been trafficked or smuggled, especially as exploitation can happen at any time,” said Jamie Fookes, UK and Europe advocacy manager at Anti-Slavery International.

“Those crossing will often have to pay either through extortion, or from being exploited in some form of forced labour or criminality on the other side.”

Safe migration routes, he added, would be the only way to prevent traffickers taking advantage of people’s desperation.

A screengrab of a Facebook post, written in Vietnamese, advertising smuggling services. The English translation is beneath and reads: Journey to 44 [the international country code for the UK], at a surprisingly cheap price. Fast, safe and meals and accommodation are included. Payment after a successful arrival.

But Thanh maintains that most Vietnamese migrants aren’t trafficked, and that it is just a line used to claim asylum.

“That’s the way it’s done. [People lie about being trafficked] in order to continue the asylum process safely,” he said.

Thanh clearly has a motive to lie about this. If he were to be caught forging documents for people who went on to be trafficked, the penalties would be far more serious than for smuggling.

In our reporting we have sought to corroborate the details of Thanh’s story – and in many instances have done so successfully. But a cloud of doubt hangs, inevitably, over elements of it.

‘I claimed I was still a child’

Thanh says he first left Vietnam in 2007. He was in his late teens or early twenties. He had already dropped out of school to work in a textile factory in the south of the country. But his family wanted him to head abroad, to Europe, in search of higher wages.

“I borrowed $6,000 (£4,624) from relatives and neighbours [to pay for the trip]. A lot of people had already made the same journey. We Vietnamese have always travelled like this – to wherever it is easier to make money,” he told me.

That journey first took him to a farm outside Prague, in the Czech Republic. He spent more than a year picking spring onions and other vegetables before deciding he could do better in Germany. Crossing the border illegally in a minibus, Thanh says he threw away his passport and other documents, and chose a new name.

And he went a step further.

When he arrived in Berlin, he told the authorities he was 14 years old.

The smugglers who had charged him $1,000 (£771) to get him into Germany had advised him it would be easier if he claimed he was under 16.

“I looked young in those days. Nobody challenged me on that.”

And so, the German authorities promptly sent a man they took to be a boy to a children’s home 45 minutes’ drive from the German capital, where Thanh quickly got to work, selling black-market cigarettes in the local town.

Thanh says he stayed in Germany for about two years. He left the children’s home, found a girlfriend, and soon became a father. But a police crackdown started to affect his income from selling cigarettes. And so, in 2010, he decided to try to reach the UK.

Crossing into France without his new family, he tells us, he threw away his German documents and invented yet another false identity.

By then, thousands of migrants were trying to cross the Channel to the UK by hiding in lorries and shipping containers. Thanh says he made several attempts but was unsuccessful.

“I had bad luck. The patrols were very strict. They used dogs to detect us hiding in a container.” He claims to have reached Dover at one point, only for the truck to be returned with him and a group of other migrants still inside.

Stuck in France, camping in a forest near Dunkirk, Thanh was offered work by Vietnamese people smugglers. It was a job at which, he says, he soon excelled.

“I had to provide food and supplies and arrange to send people to the lorries at particular times. I did not recruit people, but I was paid €300 (£250) for each successful crossing,” said Thanh, insisting that none of his passengers were being trafficked or exploited.

“We just provided a service. No-one was forced. It was illegal, but it was very, very profitable.”

A few years later, the same gang – no longer linked to Thanh, he says – would be involved in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants who were discovered, suffocated, inside a lorry trailer in Essex.

We need to gloss over some details of what Thanh says happened to him over the next few years in order to continue to hide his identity. He rose within a gang to become one of its senior members. But eventually, after being arrested, tried, and imprisoned for several years in Europe, he returned to Vietnam.

At which point, he might have left the smuggling world behind him. But, as he puts it now, his own reputation pulled him back in.

“People in Europe contacted me asking for help,” he told us.

“I’d already helped about 1,000 people to get to the UK successfully, so I was well known for that success.”

In 2017, he says he re-entered the smuggling trade – only this time, Thanh wasn’t smuggling people, he was forging documents for them.

Bank statements, payslips, tax invoices, anything that European embassies required to prove that people applying for student, or work, or business visas had the necessary funds to ensure they planned to return to Vietnam.

“I had a lot of clients. Depending on which embassy it was, we would provide forged bank statements or other documents.

“First, we would submit these online. If certain embassies needed to check with banks, then we’d put real cash into a bank account. We had arrangements with staff at certain banks,” Thanh explained.

“The clients couldn’t access the money themselves, but the bank staff would show the [falsified] details to embassy staff. We worked with lots of different types of Vietnamese banks.”

An expert in Vietnam told us that banking fraud is “quite common”, and there were instances of bank staff colluding with criminals to forge documents.

A black silhouette of man - head and shoulders. Behind him is a white curtain.

Thanh tells us he is not proud of his work as a forger – that he had known it was illegal and that he had done it simply to support his family. But at times he sounds boastful, observing that “people trust me, I have never failed”, and insisting his work was “not a serious crime in Vietnam”.

By now, Thanh had a new family in Vietnam. But earlier this year, he decided to leave.

It is not entirely clear why. At one point, he tells us his business had been struggling. He also mentions problems with the Vietnamese police – but he plays them down. Perhaps it is caution. But it strikes us that a lifetime of deception might have affected his ability, or his desire, to distinguish truth from fiction.

So why talk to us? Why risk blowing his cover in the UK? And why continue with his forgery business here, even now?

Thanh portrays himself as a repentant figure who now regrets his life of crime and wants to speak out to prevent other Vietnamese people from making the same mistakes. Above all, he wants to warn them against coming to the UK illegally, saying it is simply not worth it.

“I just want people in Vietnam to understand that it’s not worth borrowing lots of money to travel here. It’s not so easy for illegal arrivals to find work or make money.

“And when they do make money it’s less than in the past. It’s no better than in Germany or other European countries. I’ve been trying to find work in the grey economy, but I’ve not been successful,” he told us.

“If you want to work on a cannabis farm, there are opportunities, but I don’t want to get involved in more illegal activities now. I don’t want to land up in prison.”

Thanh urges the UK and European governments to make a bigger effort to publicise the fact there are no jobs here for illegal migrants. He also blames smuggling gangs for lying to their clients about the realities and opportunities.

But he says people back in Vietnam are hard to dissuade, suspecting those trying to warn against travelling to Europe are “being selfish and trying to keep the job opportunities for themselves”.

When we confront Thanh, repeatedly, about his hypocrisy and his own continued involvement in the elements of smuggling industry, he shrugs. It is just business.

“We don’t force anyone to do what they do. They ask us for help, as they would from any business. There’s no trafficking involved. If you have a good reputation, the clients come to you, without threats or violence.”

But what about the dangers involved – the surging number of deaths in the Channel?

“My role is just a small one in a much bigger process.”

Thanh acknowledges that his life, and that of his family back in Vietnam, would be in danger if the smuggling gangs found out he had been talking to us. When pushed, he admits to some regrets.

“If I could start again, I would not leave Vietnam. I think my life would be much better if I had stayed at home. I’ve faced so many struggles. I don’t have a bright future.”

Was he telling the truth?

At the end of our interview, he stands up, ready to leave, and for the first time, a flicker of concern, or perhaps irritation, seems to flit across his face.

Perhaps he had said too much.

Additional reporting by Kathy Long

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