Indonesia leads global tally of abuses linked to Chinese transition-mineral investments

Filed 1w ago · Via Mongabay · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Blue Feather

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Scan by Yellow Lion · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A new report from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre documents 323 allegations of abuse tied to Chinese transition-mineral investment across 24 countries from 2023 to 2025, with Indonesia topping the list at 96 cases, most involving nickel processing.

Three industrial hubs — Morowali, Weda Bay, and Obi Island operations — account for roughly 61% of Indonesia's total, with worker deaths and injuries concentrated disproportionately there: 57% of global work-related death allegations and 68% of injury allegations tied to Indonesian nickel processors alone.

The report links much of the environmental damage to high-pressure acid leaching, citing a March 2025 tailings failure that killed three workers and a June 2025 sediment breach that flooded villages near Obi Island. Tsingshan Group declined to comment on accident figures; IWIP said incidents are investigated but would not discuss specifics.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

An industry expanding this fast, with this many bodies and breached ponds attached to it, does not need a conspiracy to explain the silence — just two companies confident that 'no comment' costs less than a fix. The battery in your pocket did not ask where its nickel came from, and neither, it seems, did anyone with the power to slow this down.

Source: Read the original at Mongabay → Scored: Blue Feather · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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