Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
between African and Chinese participants due largely to China's increas-
ing presence in resource extraction and its direct competition with small
businesses. Yet at this point there have been no organized meetings or
forums that I know of between activist-oriented Chinese NGOs and
grassroots groups and communities in the Amazon, which could stimu-
late Chinese activism overseas. As a further indication of their absence
in Latin America, Chinese organizations failed to attend the 2009 World
Social Forum held in Brazil.
Nevertheless, Northern and Southern NGOs have indirectly pressured
China's lending practices and oil operations by demanding higher stan-
dards among Northern entities. Consider for example China's 2007
efforts to incorporate social and environmental considerations into its
lending policies, based on the Equator Principles,
26
a voluntary agree-
ment among certain banks to fi nance socially and environmentally
responsible projects. It is important to note that the Equator Principles
were established in June 2003, following a vociferous campaign by
Ecuadorian and German groups against the German lender Westdeutsche
Landesbank's support of a controversial oil pipeline project in Ecuador
(Widener 2007a, 2009).
Likewise, three of China's largest oil companies—Sinopec Corp,
PetroChina Co Ltd, and China National Offshore Oil Company
(CNOOC)—are all publicly traded, which opens an additional avenue
for international organizations to infl uence their environmental and social
practices. Fidelity Investments, for example, dropped its PetroChina shares,
while other shareholders are being pressured to do so, due to a Northern-
based human rights campaign against the company's operations in Sudan
(Hamilton 2007; Lou and Zhu 2007). In addition, the West-East gas line
in China generated enough international pressure that BP withdrew its
support (Economy 2004, 208-209). NGOs in the North have acknowl-
edged that the international NGO community has begun to discuss
among themselves how to infl uence and/or monitor China's domestic and
overseas operations.
27
According to one international advocate in Ecuador,
“China is defi nitely a behemoth for sure, but I don't think we should just
write it off, and say we can't do anything. I just think it hasn't been done
yet, so everyone is sort of just testing the waters and seeing.”
28
By “every-
one,” this advocate was referring to Northern as well as Ecuadorian
organizations.
29
These dynamics point to how affected communities in the Amazon
are confronting Chinese oil entities in the absence of external support,
how Latin American organizations are establishing greater Southern ties
