As China continues expanding its influence through investment, some locals in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, have pushed back and are speaking out against the emerging investment partner over issues of mistreatment and pollution.
Bolivia awarded the Chinese government a 49 percent stake in their lithium reserves back in 2019—the largest of its kind in the world—in a $2.3 billion deal.
China invested $79.2 million in Ecuador, between 2010 and 2019, to acquire mineral rights and also secured an $80 million project granting them oil rights in the Amazon.
In Peru, which is the world’s second-largest producer of copper, China’s investment in the mining sector represents $15 billion.
Despite these large cash infusions, there’s a noticeable lack of investment in local communities, or infrastructure, leading to what China-Latin America relations analyst Fernando Menéndez calls, “Imperialism with Chinese characteristics.”
A Complicated Working Relationship
Deep within the Bolivian Pantanal, China hooked another important investment: one of the world’s largest iron deposits in the mountain of El Mutun.
Former socialist president Evo Morales awarded the Chinese company Sinosteel the $546 million project, which resumed this year after a series of delays kept the enterprise from making significant progress since 2017.
In nearby Puerto Suárez, a collection of heavy machinery sits loaded on trucks, awaiting transport down a dirt road that leads to El Mutun.
trucks are a happy occasion for some locals who see them as an opportunity for a brighter future with Sinosteel.
“Other companies tried before [to excavate] and they were either kicked out, or failed to get the iron,” Desiderio Montano told Pezou.
China wasn’t the first country to try tapping into Bolivia’s iron cache.
Indian company Jindal bowed out of a contract struck with Morales’ government back in 2007, and the Brazilian outfit EBX was ejected in 2006, by the same administration, for attempting to access the mineral reserves illegally.
Montano says Sinosteel’s arrival is a blessing because of the jobs, and infrastructure, it will bring to Puerto Suárez, and nearby Puerto Quijarro.
However, Menéndez points to a distinct pattern with China’s investments in South America: they are strictly limited to the scope of their projects, investing nothing in local communities beyond the reach of their profits.
“It’s how you end up with things like paved roads in the middle of nowhere with little to no civilian population. y invest little, but take a whole lot,” he told Pezou.
When it comes to working together, Bolivians have a love-hate relationship with China.
In the nation’s vast salt flats, the Chinese company Xinjiang TBEA Group, employs local workers for the hardest tasks, which demand long hours at extremely high altitude, for little pay.
At over 12,000 feet outside the town of Uyuni, a local named Miguel Flores told Pezou he has one of the better jobs working for the Chinese lithium company.
“I’m a driver and I work seven days [straight] before getting the next seven days off,” he said.
Flores says that being a driver is better than working in other parts of the extraction project, but he still puts in 12 hour days.
“People at the mine work even longer hours and get paid less for harder [physical] jobs.”
While Flores admits working for China isn’t ideal, there’s little option for stable employment in the remote towns crouched at the edge of Bolivia’s salt flats.
He’s also not the first to describe unjust conditions and compensation.
In 2019, a video surfaced of an altercation between Bolivian road workers and a Chinese foreman.
A fight broke out after the foreman attempted to run over Bolivian workers with a bulldozer for refusing to work.
A union representative from the Central Obrera Departamental de Cochabamba said the workers had been on strike for three days at a job site in Bulo Bulo because they hadn’t received payment for their work.
foreman then attempted to crush the workers with heavy machinery, which prompted locals to swarm the bulldozer, pull the foreman outside, and beat him.
A Bolivian can be heard shouting “go back to your country [expletive]” as members of the Chinese management team attempted to rescue the foreman.
In the same video, a worker screams, “He tried to kill us!”
Bolivian economist Eduardo Hoffmann told Pezou that China is, without a doubt, attempting to foster a totalitarian regime outside their borders.
It Takes A Village
In Ecuador, a village of indigenous Waorani sued PetroOriental, which is a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), over claims of atmospheric pollution their community was suffering as a result of oil extraction in Block 14.
Much like their neighbors in Bolivia and Ecuador, Peruvian communities have also fought back against Chinese businesses.
In 2019, protesters set fire to the offices of Confipetrol and the CNPC during a labor protest in the town of El Alto, in Talara province.
incident occurred after a request for better working conditions, along with a live broadcast of their meeting, was denied by Chinese management during a negotiation with Peruvian workers.
rejected grievances triggered a violent response from the workers, prompting CNPC officials to flee the premises.
Back in 2012, the Chinese mining company Chinalco evicted 5,000 people from the town of Morococha in the department of Junín, which is part of the Peruvian central highlands, to build a mine.
Though most residents were forcibly relocated, 65 families resisted eviction until December 2018, when Chinalco attempted to demolish what remained of the town, including houses where people were still living.
An “Unstoppable” Force?
Hoffmann said the economics and politics of China’s deals in Latin America can no longer be separated, “ir influence is too big, they’re unstoppable now.”
Additionally, he says China’s large consumer base has pushed them to be more aggressive in their production efforts.
Menéndez added that Latin American governments’ haphazard, short-sighted deals with China are to blame for the poor treatment of locals, and cavalier attitude toward the environment.
“y’ve taken this approach with a large power player who thinks in terms of centuries,” he said.
“ people cashing the checks aren’t thinking strategically.”
Pezou : China’s Resource Exploitation in South America is ‘Unstoppable’