In an article for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, CIPÓ co-founders Adriana Abdenur and Maiara Folly — in partnership with Maurício Santoro, professor at the Department of International Relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) — analysed the railway projects financed by China in the Brazilian Amazon. The analysis includes the discussions around Ferrogrão and the tensions related to the potential socio-environmental impacts of the project, which is a major railway line designed to cross sections of the Amazon and Cerrado to deliver goods to Brazilian ports.
The article examines the diverse ways that Brazilian and Chinese actors have learned from each other as they negotiate the terms of these deals, and also explores how these learning processes have been conditioned by intense domestic political debates over these projects in Brazil.