Baaaad Chinese construction firms. Bad, bad [insert finger wagging here]

It would appear that the China Road and Bridge Corporation and China Wu Yi - firms that control a significant share of the Kenyan construction market - are in a bit of trouble: 

Four Chinese contractors have become the latest casualties of a global purge on corruption in World Bank-funded projects with a huge impact on Kenya’s construction scene. 

Caught in a corruption muddle that was instigated by a construction tender award scandal in the Philippines are two Chinese companies — China Road and Bridge Corporation and China Wu Yi — that control a significant share of the Kenyan construction market [...]

A statement from the World Bank said China Road and Bridge Corporation has been disbarred from taking part in Bank-financed projects for eight years with an offer to cut the period to five years if the firm puts in place a satisfactory compliance programme.

China Wu Yi Company Limited has been debarred for six years with an offer to terminate the ban in four years should the firm put in place a satisfactory compliance programme.

Both companies are currently undertaking major infrastructure projects in Kenya, among them the rehabilitation of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and the rebuilding of roads as part of the Northern Corridor Transport Improvement project. The companies are likewise overseeing a host of other Bank-financed projects across Africa which, by the sound of things, may be their last for the next several years. 

Will this really make much of a difference for the companies? I'm not sure. My guess is that they will continue to secure projects beyond the parameters of the Bank, and much to the chagrin of African and Western firms which continue to lose bids to the Chinese. Even if a decrease in China Road and Bridge and Wu Yi activity will occur, I wouldn't be surprised if new firms didn't suddenly pop up on the construction horizon, or other existing Chinese firms merely move in. Given all the other scandals that plague Chinese construction (and oil! and mining!) firms in Africa (shady contracts, God-awful labor conditions, generally horrible pay annnnd usually a human rights violation or two squeezed in there), this likely is more a bump in the road than a serious defeat as far as the Chinese are concerned. Several years in 'time out' is mere child's play. 

China's Charter 08

A Chinese 'Bill of Rights' in the making... (sort of...)

The document [...] signed by more than two thousand Chinese citizens, was conceived and written in conscious admiration of the founding of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, where, in January 1977, more than two hundred Czech and Slovak intellectuals formed a loose, informal, and open association of people...united by the will to strive individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in our country and throughout the world.

The Chinese document calls not for ameliorative reform of the current political system but for an end to some of its essential features, including one-party rule, and their replacement with a system based on human rights and democracy.

The prominent citizens who have signed the document are from both outside and inside the government, and include not only well-known dissidents and intellectuals, but also middle-level officials and rural leaders. They chose December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the day on which to express their political ideas and to outline their vision of a constitutional, democratic China. They want Charter 08 to serve as a blueprint for fundamental political change in China in the years to come. The signers of the document will form an informal group, open-ended in size but united by a determination to promote democratization and protection of human rights in China and beyond.

See the NYRB for the complete list of grievances and demands. And a postscript documenting the CCP's response.