cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/55562277

Chancay was built to be Beijing’s flagship gateway into South America. A Lima court ruling has just put it back under Peruvian state oversight.

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China’s flagship South American port in Peru’s Chancay [located approximately 50 miles north of Lima, Peru] is back under state oversight.

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On July 1, the Second Constitutional Chamber of the Superior Court of Lima overturned a January ruling that had stripped Ositrán, Peru’s transport infrastructure regulator, of its power to inspect and sanction the $1.3bn Megaport of Chancay. For a facility built to be China’s main gateway into South America, this is a serious reversal.

The ruling landed days after a separate court blocked a parallel attempt by the port’s operator, Chinese state-controlled Cosco Shipping, to halt an antitrust probe by Indecopi, Peru’s competition authority. Together, the two rulings end Cosco’s brief run of regulatory immunity. The court’s reasoning was blunt: Chancay is a public-use facility, regardless of the private ownership structure behind it.

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Peru has been under pressure from the United States since the port opened. American lawmakers argued Chancay has “dual useage” potential and that it could become a “direct military threat to the western hemisphere.” Chinese officials have pushed back on these accusations as they have with the Panama Canal assertions.

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On appeal by the state’s regulatory authority, Ositran, a court in Peru ruled yesterday that the state has an oversight authority because the port, while privately built and operated, is a public-use port. It said Ositran has the authority to regulate, supervise, inspect, and sanction operators under Peruvian law.

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The new decision is not final and can still be appealed in the courts.

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