"Chinese project in Indonesia’s Kalimantan brings opportunities, controversy over growing clout" 11 August 2024

Kalimantan Industrial Park Indonesia (KIPI) has been designated as one of Indonesia’s National Strategic Projects...The project will eventually cover 30,000 hectares (74,130 acres) of land in Mangkupadi and Tanah Kuning village on the eastern coast of North Kalimantan.

... two Chinese companies, Tsingshan Holding Group and Taikun Petrochemical [jointly owned by Tongkun Group and Xinfengming Group], were involved with the industrial park, as well as two Chinese contractors, China State Construction Engineering Corporation and China Railway Engineering Consulting Group...

Merah Johansyah, a coordinator of research and management at Nugal Institute, a think tank that has been collecting data about the project, said KIPI needed to be audited due to the lack of transparency surrounding it. He also cited a number of workers’ rights issues they had documented, including companies not giving workers proper contracts, making them vulnerable to underpayment and summary lay-offs...

Findings by Nugal coupled with testimony from residents in the area revealed incidents of illegal land seizures related to the project, with some locals claiming they were forced off their land or required to sell it for less than its value.

Yosran Efendi, a campaign manager at the non-profit Sustainable Forest Circle Association, said locals had not filed any official reports about this because they were too afraid to go to the police or go to court due to intimidation from the companies, which had threatened them with legal action if they refused to give up their land.

The Indonesian government has received numerous accusations of human rights violations in relation to National Strategic Projects such as KIPI...

Lena Purnama Sari, head of the land agency of Bulungan Regency, denied that there had been any issues regarding land compensation for locals related to the project, insisting that KIPI had carried out everything legally...No one at KIPI could provide a statement when This Week in Asia visited its office...