Meth, Vanilla and ‘Gulags’: How China Has Overtaken the South Pacific One Island at a Time

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NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga—August 2016 was a sun-swamped winter in the South Pacific and the vanilla business was bad. A brutal drought had wasted the annual crop and machete-wielding farmers guarded what was left of their vines. A kilo of cured vanilla—those shiny, black pods you find in vials on grocery spice aisles—that I would have paid $50 for two years earlier had soared to $300. The “black gold” story buzzed in the cafes and the villages of the remote island kingdom. If the price collapsed I’d be in trouble. Instead, it…

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