记者来鸿：中国人为什么对汤加这么感兴趣？

choi

约翰·皮克福德, 记者来鸿：中国人为什么对汤加这么感兴趣？  BBC Chinese, July 31, 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/si ... 30_fooc_tonga.shtml

, which is translated from

John Pickford, Why are the Chinese interested in Tonga?  BBC, July 27, 2013.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23469223

Quote:

(a) "We [a Chinese man living there and the reporter] started talking Tongan airline politics. How the Chinese government's gift of a new passenger plane for inter-island flights had prompted the New Zealand-based company that had been providing a domestic air service to pull out, saying it couldn't compete with a subsidised airline.

"The Chinese-manufactured MA60 aircraft has been delivered. But no Western government has given it a safety certificate and New Zealand has just announced it's suspending a multi-million dollar aid package to improve tourist infrastructure in Tonga until these safety concerns are resolved.

(b) "It's [MA60 has] also stirred up concerns among some Tongans that Chinese aid - generous, visible and impressive as it's been in recent years - can be a mixed blessing. They describe urban roads laid without proper drainage so nearby houses get flooded when it rains, and grandiose public buildings, poorly adapted to a tropical, oceanic climate, that are costly to keep cool and maintain. * * * On islands across the Pacific, you'll find very visible evidence of Chinese 'big-project' aid


Note:
(a) Tonga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga
("Tonga is one of the few countries in the world that have successfully resisted European colonization, and the Polynesian kingdom has never lost its sovereignty to a foreign power;" is the only Kingdom in the South Pacific; section 1 Etymology)

Aborigines (specifically the Ami tribe) from Taiwan populated Tonga centuries ago.
(b) "In 1998, it [Tonga] recognized the People's Republic of China and broke relations with Taiwan."  Wiki page titled "foreign relations of Tonga"
(c) Xian MA60  新舟60
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_MA60
(Modern Ark 60; a turboprop-powered airliner made by China's Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation under the China Aviation Industry Corporation I (AVIC I); Produced  2000–present)

(d) "The Tongan extended family runs on the principle, 'to each according to his need, from each according to his capacity.'  But if you're a Tongan trying to run a Fale-Kaloa and a relative turns up to say his grandfather's died, there's going to be a feast and you're going to have to give me all the chicken in your shop, you're not going to last long."

The word "run" is a verb, not a noun. This may be plain to you, but tripped me up just now.
(e) "The plane did finally get me to Hapa'ai and a day later I'm cycling across a causeway between two small islands."

causeway (n): "a raised way across wet ground or water"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/causeway