Cintia Quiliconi is an Argentine associate professor in the International Studies and Communication Department of Ecuador’s campus of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO-Ecuador) and senior editor of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies.
Outside national capitals, Chinese players are engaging local actors, from mayors, to community groups, to faith-based organizations in dynamic ways. This, in turn, is both entrenching China’s influence and compelling Chinese actors to adapt to and meet local demands.
Chinese copper mining in Ecuador have become a key component of the China-Ecuador relationship. But those ties have come at the cost of strong pushback from Indigenous Ecuadorons. Cintia Quiliconi explains how Indigenous people pushed back against Chinese copper mining in Ecuador and how Chinese firms have adapted to local resistance.
Chinese mining conglomerates sought to adapt to local conditions by forging alliances with the Ecuadorian national government. But these Chinese efforts to leverage local players undercut and divided Indigenous opposition in unsustainable ways that have backfired.
