The Economist.
At the start of November, our global correspondent Corbin Duncan
found himself deep in the forests of Southern Guinea looking at the dirt.
It’s actually not the bright red dirt that you’re looking for.
Underneath it, you start to see this bluey, purple,
almost sparkly type rock which glints in the sunlight.
He’s on the Simandou Ridge in Guinea’s Southern Highlands, on the hunt for iron ore.
In the space of just three years, this has been transformed,
this landscape from what you can imagine is rolling hills
and mountains of relatively thick scrub.
That’s been cleared away and in its wake,
you see this massive infrastructure being built and a huge mine site.
For almost 30 years, mining at Simandou remained at a standstill,
paralyzed by feuds over money and power.
But now, thanks to Chinese investment, the world’s biggest mining project is finally open for business.
I’m standing down here in the stockyards,
but you can still see in the distance the top of that mountain which has been opened up.
Because beneath that red dirt lies three billion tonnes of iron ore.
And with it, Beijing hopes, an end to one of its biggest foreign dependencies.
I’m Jia Hwa Chen, The Economist’s China researcher, and today I’m joined by Corbin Duncan,