Observers have expressed concern that Chinese mining  companies operating  in Latin America are violating  labor and environmental standards to a greater extent than other foreign mining companies. Critics point to one operation in particular  –Shougang Hierro  Peru– as evidence of China’s threat to Latin America’s workers and environment. Indeed, Shougang has experienced a far higher rate of strikes than other foreign firms. Many observers have assumed that Shougang’s strike problem stems from an inevitable culture clash between Peruvian unions and Chinese management. In fact, union relations remained positive for years, until Shougang lost funding when its parent company suffered a crisis back in China in 1995. I argue that the strike problem stems largely from Shougang’s response to its 1995 funding crisis: it burnt its bridges with the unions to save money. S...

Although China began to sign bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in the 1970s, it refused to grant foreign investors the right to sue their host government in international arbitration tribunals. Few realize that China’s treaty negotiators have in fact abandoned this restriction in almost every Chinese BIT signed since 1998, including those with Latin America. Scholars have suggested that China reversed its policy in order to support Chinese overseas investors or to fit its general economic liberalization strategy. However, China’s BITs with Mexico, Peru, and Colombia as well as its arbitration case with Peru contradict these theories. I argue that China began signing open BITs to test the risks of granting open access to European countries and the United States, for whom open access is a key condition. China experimented gradually with open arbitration, just as it has experimented ...

Observers have expressed concern that Chinese mining companies operating in Latin America are violating labor and environmental standards to a greater extent than other foreign mining companies. Critics point to one operation in particular –Shougang Hierro Peru– as evidence of China’s threat to Latin America’s workers and environment. Indeed, Shougang has experienced a far higher rate of strikes than other foreign firms. Many observers have assumed that Shougang’s strike problem stems from an inevitable culture clash between Peruvian unions and Chinese management. In fact, union relations remained positive for years, until Shougang lost funding when its parent company suffered a crisis back in China in 1995. I argue that the strike problem stems largely from Shougang’s response to its 1995 funding crisis: it burnt its bridges with the unions to save money. Some have suggested...