Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
China Built a $100bn City in Malaysia... and No One Lives There
In 2016, China's largest property developer, Country Garden, introduced a bold vision: Forest City. A $100 billion mega-project launched under China’s Belt and Road Initiative; it was set to redefine Malaysia’s landscape with an eco-friendly metropolis. The plan promised a dreamlike city with golf courses, water parks, office towers, and bustling restaurants. Nearly a million people were expected to call it home.
Fast forward eight years, and that dream has turned into a ghost town. Forest City stands eerily empty, a chilling reminder of China’s property crisis spreading beyond its borders.
If you visit the official Forest City website, you’ll see grand images of an ultramodern paradise—gleaming skyscrapers, lush greenery, pristine beaches. But on the ground? It's disturbingly quiet. The roads are empty, the luxurious amenities deserted. One haunting detail: a children’s train endlessly circling a deserted mall, a symbol of emptiness. A BBC journalist called it a "lifeless husk," with the few residents desperate to escape the suffocating silence.
China Built a $100bn City in Malaysia... and No One Lives There
In 2016, China's largest property developer, Country Garden, introduced a bold vision: Forest City. A $100 billion mega-project launched under China’s Belt and Road Initiative; it was set to redefine Malaysia’s landscape with an eco-friendly metropolis. The plan promised a dreamlike city with golf courses, water parks, office towers, and bustling restaurants. Nearly a million people were expected to call it home.
Fast forward eight years, and that dream has turned into a ghost town. Forest City stands eerily empty, a chilling reminder of China’s property crisis spreading beyond its borders.
If you visit the official Forest City website, you’ll see grand images of an ultramodern paradise—gleaming skyscrapers, lush greenery, pristine beaches. But on the ground? It's disturbingly quiet. The roads are empty, the luxurious amenities deserted. One haunting detail: a children’s train endlessly circling a deserted mall, a symbol of emptiness. A BBC journalist called it a "lifeless husk," with the few residents desperate to escape the suffocating silence.
