So far, however, China has failed to persuade the country’s president to lease it one of the 700 uninhabited Maldivian islands for use as a small base for the Chinese navy. Chinese companies’ operating practice for overseas projects, including in Africa, is to keep the number of local workers to a bare minimum and to bring in much of the workforce from China, some of which comprises convicts “freed” on parole for project-related overseas work.