As China continues expanding its influence through investment, some locals in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, have pushed back and are speaking out against the emerging investment partner over issues of mistreatment and pollution. Bolivia awarded the Chinese government a 49 percent stake in their lithium reserves back in 2019—the largest of its kind in the world—in a $2.3 billion deal. China invested $79.2 million in Ecuador, between 2010 and 2019, to acquire mineral rights and also secured an $80 million project granting them oil rights in the Amazon. In Peru, which is the world’s second-largest producer of copper, China’s investment in the mining sector represents $15 billion. Despite these large cash infusions, there’s a noticeable lack of investment in local communities, or infrastructure, leading to what China-Latin America relations analyst Fernando Menéndez calls, “Imperialism with Chinese characteristics.” A Complicated Working Relationship Deep within the Bolivian Pantanal, China hooked another important investment: one of the world’s largest iron deposits in the mountain of El …