Ferrogrão (EF-170): procurement, environment, and Chinese strategic interest

Abstract

The research analyzes foreign investments in infrastructure in Brazil through the case study of the Ferrogrão Project (EF-170), examining documents from the public hearing and the bidding process (BRAZIL, 2025). It is based on the assumption that, although the project aims to expand logistical integration and the competitiveness of exports, it also generates significant socio-environmental impacts on sensitive ecosystems and traditional communities, especially Indigenous peoples (OLHO NO XINGU OBSERVATORY, 2024). Brazil’s interest in the participation of Chinese state-owned enterprises is related to the search for foreign capital and the acceleration of infrastructure delivery, even though this insertion engages with the logic of the capitalist world-system (WALLERSTEIN, 2004; ARRIGHI, 2007). The central question is whether the Chinese presence in Ferrogrão reproduces extractivist and hegemonic patterns or represents an alternative more sensitive to socio-environmental dimensions and Brazilian regulation. The analysis is deepened through engagement with the critical approaches of TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) and FWAIL (Fourth World Approaches to International Law), which enable a critical examination of the role of International Environmental Law in reproducing global asymmetries and in marginalizing the knowledge systems and rights of Indigenous peoples. Methodologically, this is a qualitative study based on document analysis and a case study, also supported by a literature review on the world-system, China’s presence in Latin America, and the impacts of railway expansion in the Amazon. Partial results indicate that Ferrogrão is embedded in a neo-extractivist model, oriented toward the export of low value-added commodities, benefiting large international trading companies (RODRIGUES AND LUZ, 2024). Despite the official discourse of mitigation, independent analyses point to broad socio-environmental impacts and weaknesses in environmental and Indigenous rights safeguards (XINGU NETWORK OBSERVATORY, 2023). Such evidence suggests a Chinese role more aligned with the core powers of the world-system than with an alternative model of development.