Third world subjects, First world law?

A day after these shootings, Mr. Qui hastily left Chambishi. Mr. Mwanaumo, like the other wounded workers, was fired. Feeling too sick to work, he spends his days in a tiny, dark hut set amid sewage-soaked mud, hoping that relatives and friends will collect enough money to file a compensation lawsuit.

China's hunger for natural resources is leading it into Africa, where it is starting to assume a position that closely resembles that of a colonial power. At this particular mine in Chambishi, Zambia, fatal accidents led the Chinese company to admit that allowing unions would contribute to stronger safety regulations. They negotiated to allow the unions in, despite the increase to their operational costs. However, when workers discovered they would not be receiving the level of back pay they had expected, and in some cases owed money to the company, some struck back with violence and vandalism.

A Chinese supervisor, Mr. Qui, shot multiple workers, including Mr. Mwanaumo, who was at the scene attempting to help an injured friend.

This story, and in particular the quote above, struck me as exemplary of the stark differences between the "worlds" that the movement of globalization, it could be argued, is attempting to meld. The quote above juxtaposes the world of the worker, who is paid $67 a month and lives in squalor, with the bureacratic, politically-fueled sort of "bigger-picture" world of those who oversee him, who are exploiting him for the sake of not only personal economic gain, but the prosperity, expansion and position of China on a global scale. It seems so out of place, to the extent that it is almost comical, that Mr. Miwanaumo's only hopes depend on a compensation lawsuit, within a Chinese system that is culturally and economically alien. That system of justice hardly seems compatible with the conditions in which he works and lives, and I wonder if that speaks at all to the cause of the conflict.

Trofimov, Yaroslav. "In Africa, China's Expansion Begins to Stir Resentment." Wall Street Journal 2 Feb. 2007: A1.