By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
CHANCAY, PERU (Worthy News) – China’s President Xi Jinping has inaugurated a controversial massive port on the edge of Peru’s coastal desert that locals fear will leave many of them without a hopeful future.
The mega port of Chancay, a remote fishing town where a third of its 63,000 residents lack running water, is a $1.3 billion project majority-owned by the Chinese shipping giant Cosco.
Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening of the Chancay port, about 80 kilometers (48 miles) north of the capital, Lima, on the Pacific Ocean.
Xi said that Chancay, a 15-berth, deep-water port, was the successful start of a “21st century maritime Silk Road” and part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, its modern revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route.
“It is very important that we work together to ensure the success of Chancay Port from construction through operation so that the route from Chancay to Shanghai will lead China, Peru, and Latin America to common development and prosperity,” Xi said earlier in a signed editorial Thursday that ran in the local newspaper El Peruano.
Don’t tell that to 78-year-old fisherman Julius Caesar (“like the emperor of Rome,” he says). “Our fishing spots no longer exist here. They destroyed them,” he told The Associated Press (AP) news agency, gesturing toward the dockside cranes. “I don’t blame the Chinese for trying to mine this place for all it’s worth it. I blame our government for not protecting us.”
INCREASING FOOTPRINT
It comes as China increases its footprint across resources-rich South America as part of broader efforts to rival the United States. Xi attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima as a sign of that cooperation.
However, Washington has watched with unease over the years as China established deep trading relationships with countries across Latin America. Yet Matt Murray, the senior State Department official dealing with APEC issues, insisted to the Voice of America (VOA) broadcaster that the port was “not a source of concern” for the Biden administration.
“I don’t necessarily see this as complicating our relationship in the region,” he told VOA. “We view it as a natural part of business that Latin American countries will have diverse trade and investment partners.”
However, with some of the world’s largest container ships to berth at Chancay Port in January 2025, residents fear the arrival of pollution and oil spills, further impacting fishing stocks.
In 2022, a botched tanker delivery at the nearby La Pampilla refinery sent thousands of barrels of crude oil spilling into Peru’s famously biodiverse waters, displacing legions of fishermen.
Today, reporters noticed that a glance at the dying town center, mainly featuring empty seafood restaurants, tells the story of diminished fishing stocks and decimated tourism even without the port being operational.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a sweeping series of airstrikes across southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley on Monday, targeting what it described as Hezbollah sites used for rocket launches and the production and storage of strategic weapons. The attacks marked one of the most extensive Israeli operations in Lebanon in months, killing at least three Hezbollah operatives in the past 24 hours, according to the military.
Residents on Luzon Island, the largest and most populated island of the Philippines, assessed the damage early Monday after a sleepless night when Super Typhoon Fung-wong, locally known as Uwan, killed at least two people and injured several others.
More than 50 prominent Christian leaders are calling on President Trump to directly confront Syria’s new president about the ongoing persecution of religious minorities when the two leaders meet Monday at the White House, marking a historic first for U.S.-Syria relations.
In a decisive break from Democratic obstruction that has paralyzed the federal government for over a month, the U.S. Senate on Sunday night voted 60-40 to advance legislation ending the record-breaking 40-day government shutdown, marking a significant victory for Republican fiscal discipline and President Donald Trump’s healthcare reform agenda.
A group of Hamas fighters trapped inside tunnels on the Israeli-controlled side of the Rafah ceasefire line have vowed not to surrender to Israeli forces, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced Sunday, in a move that could jeopardize the fragile month-old ceasefire in Gaza.
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an extraordinary 2,700-year-old pottery fragment inscribed with Assyrian cuneiform near the Temple Mount — the first written evidence of direct contact between the Assyrian Empire and the Kingdom of Judah ever discovered in the city. The find, announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), offers striking confirmation of the biblical narrative of King Hezekiah’s resistance to Assyrian domination recorded in II Kings 18.
Iranian officials are warning of imminent water rationing—and even the potential evacuation of Tehran—as the nation faces its worst drought in nearly a century.