This year will be no exception when it comes to the Chinese fishing fleet’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices in the territorial waters of Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador, the Argentine independent journalism site Urgente 24 said on January 3, 2022.
China continues to be the most important supplier of weapons systems to Venezuela, Venezuelan nongovernmental Organization (NGO) Control Ciudadano revealed in its November 2021 report Bolivarian Armed Forces, Acquisition, Reception, and Incorporation of Weapons and Military Equipment, 2017-2021 Period. According to the report, China and Russia have remained as the top two arms suppliers to the South American country in the last five years, although acquisitions are much lower than in previous years, due to the collapse of the Venezuelan economy.
Most of the leather produced in Brazil, about 80 percent, is sold abroad, with China as the main buyer, acquiring more than 27 percent of the material. The issue, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, in Portuguese), is that of the five main states that supply rawhide, which is the first stage in the leather-making process, three are in the Amazon: Pará, Rondônia, and the northern region of Mato Grosso.
Construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant in Ecuador’s Napo and Sucumbíos provinces began in July 2010. In November 2016, the plant began operations. It was expected to have a capacity of 1,500 megawatts, and forecast to export power to neighboring countries; however, as of December 17, 2021, it was only producing 500 megawatts, due to problems detected even before operations began.
China is conducting tests with a vehicle that reaches five times the speed of sound and is capable of carrying nuclear warheads and firing missiles. The Financial Times first reported the information in October 2021, although the tests were conducted on July 27 and August 13. According to the British daily, this technology, from China, has never been tested by any other country to date.
Smuggled Chinese cigarettes are flooding Latin America through a network of Panama-based shell companies that ship enormous quantities to the region, which does not have a legal market to sell them. These were the findings of an investigation conducted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international investigative reporting organization specializing in organized crime.
The Zijin Mining company, one of the largest copper and gold producers in China, will acquire in full the Canadian company Neo Lithium Corp., which exploits lithium in Tres Quebradas, in the Argentine province of Catamarca, for $770 million, both companies said in a mid-October statement. In September, two other Chinese companies announced that they had also reached agreements to buy two Canadian lithium mining companies that operate in Salta province, according to several media outlets, including Reuters and the financial newspaper Nikkei Asia.
The growing electricity crisis in China, a result of the lack of coal and a high post-pandemic demand for energy, is forcing the rationing of electricity throughout the country, causing industries to close and threatening to derail China’s economic growth, an adverse scenario for Latin America.
From 2000 to 2021, China has caused community conflicts in Latin America, producing negative impacts on the environment by conducting extractive, energy, and infrastructure projects, the nongovernmental organizations Latinoamérica Sustentable (LAS, in Spanish) of Ecuador and the Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad of Colombia reported.
The Canadian and U.S. governments are supporting Ecuador’s efforts to counter illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, by improving the monitoring and preservation of the region’s ecosystems.
Two years ago, the U.S. government began to question a Chinese businessman’s motives to purchase Perico Island, in El Salvador, the U.S. network NBC News reported on September 4, 2021.
Bosai Minerals Group Co. Ltd., founded in 1994 and based in Chongqing province, China, has several businesses, including the distribution of coal, as well as other minerals and ore. This Chinese corporation is also involved in a big controversy in Guyana with residents of the mining town of Matthews Ridge, Region One (Barima-Waini administrative region), a 20,339-square-kilometer area that Venezuela claims as part of a territory it calls Guayana Esequiba.
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