The pork belly hits the oil with a sizzle, and a rich aroma of soy sauce and caramelising sugar fills the kitchen. Zhang Changchun, a middle-aged man from China’s Heilongjiang province, is cooking dinner for his friends on a warm evening in Mayaya, a small town in the Bolivian Amazon. In this small restaurant, a group of half a dozen Chinese men gathers most nights to eat, drink and play mahjong.
Each man plays a critical role in the town’s booming gold business. Some work as investors or miners; others import supplies and equipment. Together, they run most of the town’s mining operations: about 20 open-pit mines and 12 dredge boats, operated by about 2,000 Bolivian and 200 Chinese workers.
The table gets rowdy as the men debate their afternoon games over high-end Chinese cigarettes and Bolivian beer. Almost every conversation revolves around money. In less than a decade, private Chinese mining companies have turned this once-remote Amazonian town into a hub of gold speculation.
Mining equipment stores, hotels and Chinese restaurants now line the main street. The Guardian spent five days with Chinese miners, investors and traders. The Bolivian Amazon has long attracted foreign capital, from rubber and timber industries to North American mining companies in the 1950s.
But now, Chinese mining is defining a new era of extraction, as a global network of goods, machinery and labour often thrives illegally under Bolivian law. A 2014 national law limits mining rights to cooperatives and independent miners, state-controlled firms and domestic and foreign private companies. Such foreign firms must have a registered Bolivian office and operate in their own name.
The state permits joint ventures, leases and risk-sharing agreements between foreign and national firms, but only through public-private contracts, in which the state is a shareholder. Chinese mining firms operating outside this framework act unlawfully. Under a 2016 law, cooperatives also risk expropriation if they contract, lease or share mining-concession risks with foreign firms.
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