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After working through the first boom and bust of Ottawa’s high-tech industry, Dan McGarry came to a realization in the early 2000s: he’d had enough of “making billionaires richer.”

So the English major-turned-software developer volunteered for an aid group and ended up in the south Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.

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It was supposed to be a two-year stint helping civil-society groups with IT capacity building, until McGarry fell in love with the country and decided to stay, eventually switching careers to journalism.

But his transplanted homeland has suddenly uprooted him, and he blames China’s increasing presence in Vanuatu.

McGarry was abruptly barred Saturday from returning to the country — where his spouse and two children await him — after a visit to Australia last week, and believes his newspaper’s critical coverage of increasing Chinese influence in Vanuatu is behind the decision.