The global expansion of Chinese companies continues to spark human and labor right violation concerns. In Latin America, extreme poverty, low wages, trade union restrictions, and conditions akin to slavery are some of the abuses that have been documented in Chinese-led projects. This pattern of exploitation reflects the influence of a model that prioritizes strategic interests over respect for international values such as human rights and democracy.
In an attempt to improve its global image, in 2023, the Chinese government launched the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), a propaganda tool promoted as a dialogue and cooperation model based on values such as “justice, democracy, and freedom.” In reality, the ambiguous concept has practical implications that ultimately benefit China and advances a Beijing alternative to the “rules-based international order,” calling for a relativist approach to respect for human rights contingent on each country’s “national conditions and unique features,” U.S. news organization The Conversation reported.
“In other words, there shouldn’t be a universal standard of human rights at all,” The Conversation added.
“In the past, Chinese companies hired foreigners in executive positions to project cosmopolitanism,” said Julia Cuadros, an economist with Peruvian nongovernmental organization CoperAcción, which promotes social, environmental, political, cultural, and economic rights. “Now they bring in more Chinese workers, as evidenced by recent cases in Brazil, Uruguay, and Mexico.”
While some nations might be lured by Chinese investments hoping for a boost in their economy, these come with strings attached, political coercion, debt burdens, not to mention that the Beijing’s model of taking Chinese workers to projects abroad poses a challenge to local job creation.
Brazil and Uruguay
Recent cases in Brazil and Uruguay expose the magnitude of the problem. In December 2024, Brazilian authorities rescued 163 Chinese workers in Bahia from slavery-like conditions at the plant of Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD. Brazilian authorities report that the workers were brought from China to Brazil illegally, some without work permits. The employees were subjected to long working hours, unhealthy conditions, and wage retention, Reuters reported.
The Chinese workers had to ask permission to leave their accommodation, their beds had no mattresses, their food was stored without refrigeration, and at least 107 of them had their passports taken away by their employers. They often worked seven days a week, some 60 percent of their wages were withheld, while the remaining would be paid in Chinese currency, CNN en español reported.
“We have verified that the work of these workers was carried out in conditions similar to slavery,” labor inspector for Brazil’s Ministry of Labor Liane Durao said at a press conference. “The minimum safety conditions in the work environment were not met.” The Bahia construction site was shut down after Brazil said it viewed the violations as human trafficking.
Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist and professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, told German news agency DW that “this case pits the importance of Chinese investment against upholding local standards.” He stressed that the action is even more significant because it involves a company that enjoys strong political support due to the importance of its investments in Brazil for reindustrialization projects.
The use of Chinese workers in construction projects abroad brings little to no benefits to the countries receiving the investment. “For Brazil, it would have been better if these workers had been local, because of the income they would have generated for themselves and their families, the positive impact on their communities, and the professional training they would have acquired,” Paulo Feldmann, an economist and professor at the FIA Business school in São Paulo told DW. “It would also be easier to monitor their working conditions.”
In Uruguay, the 500-kilovot power transmission and distribution loop network project, carried out by state-owned China Machinery Engineering Corporation, is also facing complaints. According to Uruguayan daily La Mañana, 500 Chinese workers, many of them undocumented, work 12-hour days, without overtime pay, every day of the week. An inspection in October 2024 revealed that these workers had not been paid for five months, leading the Ministry of Labor to open 21 proceedings.
Exploitation in other sectors
In Mexico, Chinese company Time Ceramics was also accused of wrongdoing. In January 2024, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office found that of 148 Chinese immigrants working for the company in Hidalgo state, 39 did not have proper working papers. They were turned over to the National Migration Institute. According to Mexican media outlet N+, the Chinese workers who had arrived in mid-2023 to install the production line at Time Ceramics were housed in a hotel, where they spent most of the day, and only one group was allowed to go out twice a day for food.
In May 2024, Mexican daily El Sol de Hidalgo reported that 200 Mexican workers from the same company denounced wage cuts, loss of seniority, lack of safety equipment, and working conditions they described as slavery, in clear violation of their labor rights.
“Often, the fear that Chinese investments might be pulled leads many nations to relax their legal frameworks, weakening the rules that protect labor and human rights,” Cuadros said. “This approach prioritizes attracting capital at any cost, even sacrificing the dignity and well-being of workers.”
Captive workers
Abuses are not limited to the land but also happen at sea, where the predatory Chinese fishing fleet depletes South America’s maritime resources. Each year, some 400 vessels travel more than 16,000 kilometers to operate at the limits of the region’s exclusive economic zones, Argentine news site Infobae reported.
These vessels have extreme living and working conditions, with rampant abuses, including labor trafficking, debt bondage, violence, abandonment, and deaths. “The human rights abuses on these ships are happening on an industrial and global scale,” journalistic organization The Outlaw Ocean Project (OOP) indicated in a report.
Workers on these ships can spend up to two years on board with no internet or phone signal, working 15-hour days for at least six days a week, resting in overcrowded rooms with double their capacity, El Sol de México reported.
According to the OOP, these ships recruit desperate men from China and poor countries with promises of good money yet impose a series of fees on them, such as travel, training, and protective gear, forcing workers to take out loans, creating a form of debt bondage, confiscating passports, and adding fines for leaving jobs, further trapping them.
“Once again, we’re seeing the recurring pattern of Chinese investments in Latin America,” Euclides Tapia, a senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Panama, told Diálogo. For Cuadros, “these cases underline the need to strengthen oversight mechanisms and demand international standards to protect workers and communities,” he concluded.
