Earlier this year, Ai Qing was woken up in the middle of the night by angry chants outside her dormitory in northern Argentina.
She peered out of the window to see Argentine workers
surrounding the compound and blockading the entrance with flaming tyres.
"It was getting scary because I could see the sky being
lit up by the fire. It had become a riot," says Ms Ai, who works for a
Chinese company extracting lithium from salt flats in the Andes mountains, for
use in batteries.
The protest, sparked by the firing of a number of Argentine
staff, is just one of a growing number of cases of friction between Chinese
businesses and host communities, as China - which already dominates the
processing of minerals vital to the green economy - expands its involvement in
mining them.
It was just 10 years ago that a Chinese company bought the
country's first stake in an extraction project within the "lithium
triangle" of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which holds most of the world's
lithium reserves.
Many further Chinese investments in local mining operations
have followed, according to mining publications, and corporate, government and
media reports. The BBC calculates that based on their shareholdings, Chinese
companies now control an estimated 33% of the lithium at projects currently
producing the mineral or those under construction.
But as Chinese businesses have expanded, they have faced
allegations of abuses similar to those often levelled at other international
mining giants.
For Ai Qing, the tyre-burning protest was a rude awakening.
She had expected a quiet life in Argentina, but found herself involved in
conflict mediation because of her knowledge of Spanish.
“It wasn’t easy,” she says.
“Beyond the language, we have to tone down many things, like
how management thinks the employees are simply lazy and too reliant on the
union, and how locals think Chinese people are only here to exploit them.”
The BBC Global China Unit has identified at least 62 mining
projects across the world, in which Chinese companies have a stake, that are
designed to extract either lithium or one of three other minerals key to green
technologies – cobalt, nickel and manganese.
All are used to make lithium-ion batteries – used in
electric vehicles – which, along with solar panels, are now high industrial
priorities for China. Some projects are among the largest producers of these
minerals in the world.
China has long been a leader in refining lithium and cobalt,
with a share of global supply reaching 72% and 68% respectively in 2022,
according to the Chatham House think tank.
Its capacity to refine these and other critical minerals has
helped the country reach a point where it made more than half of the electric
vehicles sold worldwide in 2023, has 60% of the global manufacturing capacity
for wind turbines, and controls at least 80% of each stage in the solar panel
supply chain.
China’s role in the sector has made these items cheaper and
more accessible globally.
But it’s not only China that will need to mine and process
minerals needed for the green economy. The UN says that if the world is to
reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, their use must increase
six-fold by 2040.
The US, the UK and the European Union have all developed
strategies, meanwhile, to reduce their dependence on Chinese supplies.
As Chinese companies have increased their overseas mining
operations, allegations of problems caused by these projects have steadily
risen.
The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, an NGO, says
such troubles are “not unique to Chinese mining” but last year it published a
report listing 102 allegations made against Chinese companies involved in
extracting critical minerals, ranging from violations of the rights of local
communities to damage to ecosystems and unsafe working conditions.
These allegations dated from 2021 and 2022. The BBC has
counted more than 40 further allegations that were made in 2023, and reported
by NGOs or in the media.
People in two countries, on opposite sides of the world,
also told us their stories.
On the outskirts of Lubumbashi in the far south of the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Christophe Kabwita has been leading opposition to
the Ruashi cobalt mine, owned by the Jinchuan Group since 2011.
He says the open-pit mine, situated 500m from his doorstep,
blights people’s lives by using explosives to blast away at the rock two or
three times per week. Sirens wail when the blasting is about to start, as a
signal for everyone to stop what they are doing and take cover.
“Whatever the temperature, whether it’s raining or a gale is
blowing, we have to leave our homes and go to a shelter near the mine,” he
says.
This applies to everyone, including the sick and women who
have just given birth, he adds, as nowhere else is safe.
In 2017 a teenage girl, Katty Kabazo, was reportedly killed
by a flying rock on her way home from school, while other rocks are said to
have punched holes into the walls and roofs of local houses.
A spokesperson from the Ruashi mine, Elisa Kalasa,
acknowledged that “one young kid was in that area – she was not supposed to be
there and was affected by the flying rocks”.
She said that since then “we have improved the technology,
and now we have the sort of blasting where there are no flying rocks any more”.
However, the BBC spoke to a processing manager at the
company, Patrick Tshisand, who appeared to give a different picture. He said: “If
we mine, we use explosives. Explosives can cause flying rocks, which can end up
in the community because the community is too close to the mine… so we had
several accidents like that.”
Ms Kalasa also said that between 2006 and 2012 the company
compensated more than 300 families to relocate further away from the mine.
On Indonesia’s remote Obi Island, a mine jointly owned by a
Chinese company, Lygend Resources and Technology, and Indonesian mining giant
Harita Group has rapidly swallowed up the forests around the village of Kawasi.
Jatam, a local mining watchdog, says that villagers have
been under pressure to move and accept government compensation. Dozens of
families have refused to relocate, saying what is on offer is below market
value. As a result, some say they have been threatened with legal action for
allegedly disrupting a project of national strategic importance.
Jatam says old-growth forests have been logged to make way
for the mine and they’ve documented how the rivers and ocean have been filled
with sediment, polluting what was once a pristine marine environment.
“The water from the river is undrinkable now, it’s so
contaminated, and the sea, that is usually clear blue, turns red when it rains,”
Nur Hayati, a teacher who lives in Kawasi village, says.
Indonesian soldiers have been deployed to the island to
protect the mine and when the BBC visited recently, there was a noticeable,
increased military presence. Jatam claims soldiers are being used to
intimidate, and even assault, people who speak out against the mine. Ms Nur
says her community feels the army is there to “protect the interests of the
mine, not the welfare of their own people”.
The military's spokesperson In Jakarta said allegations of
intimidation “cannot be proven” and that while the soldiers were there to “protect
the mine” they were not there to “directly interact with locals”.
In a statement, he claimed the relocation of villagers to
make way for the mine had been overseen by the police in a “peaceful and smooth
manner”.
Ms Nur was among a group of villagers who travelled to the
Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in June 2018, to protest against the impact of the
mine. But a local government representative, Samsu Abubakar, told the BBC no
complaints had been received from the public about environmental damage.
He also shared an official report that concluded Harita
Group had been “compliant with environmental management and monitoring
obligations”.
Harita itself told us that it “adheres strictly to ethical
business practices and local laws” and it is “continuously working to address
and mitigate any negative impacts”.
It claimed it had not caused widespread deforestation, it
monitored the local source of drinking water, and independent tests have
confirmed the water met government quality standards. It added that it had not
carried out forced evictions or unfair land transactions and had not
intimidated anyone.
A year ago, the Chinese mining trade body, known as CCCMC,
started setting up a grievance mechanism, intended to resolve complaints made
against Chinese-owned mining projects. The companies themselves "lack the
ability - both cultural and linguistic" to interact with local communities
or civil society organisations, says a spokesperson, Lelia Li.
However, the mechanism still isn't fully operating.
Meanwhile, China's involvement in foreign mining operations
seems certain to increase. It's not just a "geopolitical play" to
control a key market, says Aditya Lolla, the Asia programme director at Ember,
a UK-based environmental think tank, it also makes sense from a business
perspective.
"Acquisitions are being made by Chinese companies
because, for them, it's all about profits," he says.
As a result, Chinese workers will continue to be sent to
mining projects around the world and for them, these projects mostly present a
chance to earn good money.
People such as Wang Gang, who has worked for 10 years in
Chinese-owned cobalt mines in DR Congo. The 48-year-old lives in company
accommodation and eats in the staff canteen, working 10-hour days, seven days a
week, with four days’ leave per month.
He accepts the separation from his family in Hubei province,
because he earns more than he could at home. He also enjoys the clear skies and
tall forests of DR Congo.
He communicates with local mine workers in a mixture of
French, Swahili, and English, but says: “We rarely chat, except for
work-related matters.”
Even Ai Qing, who speaks the language of her host country
fluently, has little interaction with Argentines outside work. She’s started
seeing a fellow Chinese worker, and they mostly hang out with other people like
themselves – being thousands of miles from home pulls everyone closer.
A highlight for her Is visiting the salt flats high up in
the Andes where the lithium is mined and life is “chill”.
“The altitude sickness always gets me – I can’t fall asleep
and I can’t eat,” she says. “But I really do enjoy going up there because
things are much simpler, and there are no office politics.” BBC
Ai Qing and Wang Gang are pseudonyms
Additional reporting by Emery Makumeno, Byobe Malenga,
Lucien Kahozy
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