By Entorno | 2025-07-17

As the global energy transition accelerates, Latin America's rich deposits of critical minerals have become a magnet for investment.

At the heart of this scramble is China, the region's top buyer and investor, whose companies and banks play a pivotal role in the extraction of copper, lithium and other strategic resources.

But as Chinese bulldozers dig deeper into the earth, reports of human rights abuses victimizing foes of those projects continue to mount.

A May 6 report by Paulina Garzón and María Emilia Hermosa of the Latinoamérica Sustentable (LAS) organization exposes a key, yet often overlooked player in this pattern of violence: Chinese banks.

Titled "Breaking the anonymity: The role of Chinese banks in the harms suffered by environmental defenders," the report names Chinese financial institutions as silent but essential actors in a system that fuels repression.

These banks fund more than 120 mining projects in the region, including Las Bambas, Río Blanco and Toromocho in Peru; Mirador in Ecuador; and lithium operations in Argentina, Chile and Brazil.

From 2000 to 2020, almost 40% of the $180 billion in Latin American exports to China consisted of critical minerals. Meanwhile, 35% of all Chinese foreign direct investment in the region has gone to the mining sector.

In project after project, civil society groups have documented harassment, surveillance, forced evictions, criminalization and even killings of critics of extractive ventures.

In 2024 alone, Front Line Defenders recorded 324 killings of human rights defenders worldwide. A staggering 257 of them, or 79.3%, took place in Latin America.

The invisible hand of finance

Despite their deep financial involvement, Chinese banks have faced little scrutiny or accountability.

Banks enjoy a "convenient anonymity" when it comes to the abuses carried out by their clients, said LAS. But the influence they wield is undeniable. By providing loans, banks directly shape the decisions and conduct of the companies they finance.

"Chinese banks have environmental and social responsibilities they must uphold," Garzón and Hermosa wrote, citing not only internal guidelines and Chinese government directives but also international standards and the laws of host countries.

In January 2024, during China's Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, Beijing accepted recommendations from Spain and Chile to better protect environmental defenders. Yet the gap between diplomatic promises and realities on the ground remains wide.

Ecuador's Mirador mine: a turning point

The Amazonian copper mine known as Mirador, situated in Zamora Chinchipe province, Ecuador, exemplifies these contradictions. It is the country's largest open-pit mine and soon will house the world's tallest tailing dam.

The project is operated by Ecuacorriente S.A., a subsidiary of the Chinese consortium CRCC-Tongguan Investment. Eight Chinese banks, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Export–Import Bank of China, finance it.

In February, the community group CASCOMI, with LAS's support, published a groundbreaking report detailing the situation on the ground. The document outlines forced evictions, intimidation of community leaders, surveillance of local residents and employees, and pressure on Ecuador's Ombudsman's Office.

The company obstructed investigations into the killing of a local opponent of the mine, it alleges.

The report found that Chinese banks had failed on multiple fronts: they ignored environmental and social regulations, neglected due diligence and lacked mechanisms to monitor or correct corporate misconduct.

Peru: history repeats

Similar patterns have emerged in Peru. In March, a court sentenced 11 defenders from communities near Las Bambas to prison terms for their involvement in 2015 protests.

The demonstrations had called for consultation over changes to the mine's environmental impact assessment. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor, responded forcefully: "No one should be punished for defending their rights," according to the LAS report.

Weeks later, a Peruvian appellate court overturned the verdict, but it could not repair the damage to the accused or to their communities.

Other projects bear similar scars. At Río Blanco, a copper and molybdenum project involving the Chinese Zijin Mining Group, gunmen killed four locals, injured dozens and kidnapped and tortured more than 30 other victims betwee 2004 and 2009.

At Toromocho, another major Chinese-backed mine, locals have reported forced displacements and constant surveillance of local leaders.

Toward zero tolerance

The LAS report offers an urgent call to action. It demands that Chinese banks adopt a zero-tolerance policy for reprisals against environmental defenders, implement robust environmental and social safeguards, and establish formal complaint and remedy mechanisms.

"Chinese banks can no longer turn a blind eye to the harm their financing causes to the communities they claim to serve," the authors say. The responsibility, they add, lies not only with the corporations wielding backhoes in the Andes and the Amazon but also with the bankers in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong who bankroll them.

For Latin American governments, communities, and social movements, the challenge is to hold these powerful actors accountable, especially when economic interests so often outweigh human rights.

But as the report reminds, if China wants to continue investing in the region, it must learn to respect its people and their territories.