Amid the fanfare of this last month’s China-CELAC Summit, few took notice of China’s high-stake military and mining deals with Nicaragua.
Since the 2021 reestablishment of diplomatic ties, the Ortega-Murillo regime has quietly handed nearly 300,000 hectares of land – or 2.36 percent of Nicaragua’s national territory – to four mining companies affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.
None of these companies has a track record in Nicaragua. None is a known entity in China. None even has a website. But all share one common denominator: regime backing and a legal framework conveniently and coincidentally tailored to their advance.
It’s a model of state cooptation where minerals and silence are traded in exchange for prolonging a sanctioned regime. Moreover, China’s business dealings in Nicaragua demonstrate how the Ortega-Murillo regime has relaxed certain laws to allow China-linked companies to more freely operate in the country while mitigating Western pressure. Nicaragua depicts an emergent case study in how Chinese leverage unfolds across fragile governments in Latin America and the Global South.
Axis of Extraction
Nicaragua’s alignment with China reflects the Ortega-Murillo family’s calculated partnership grounded in authoritarian resilience. After severing ties with Taiwan and seizing its former embassy for Beijing in 2021, the Ortega-Murillo regime unlocked immediate access to free trade agreements and the Belt and Road initiative. Since then, bilateral cooperation has deepened, from journalist exchanges to megaproject plans, as well as a $1.4 billion trade deficit.
This alignment is a new pillar of the regime’s desperate survival strategy, where China acts as the primary benefactor. As increasing Western pressure and international watchdogs call out the regime’s actions, China provides capital and silence.
In return, Nicaragua has bent its legal and constitutional systems to accommodate opaque shell entities with no track record. This legal flexibility, paired with the regime’s consolidation of government, enables China to establish influence with minimal resistance or scrutiny.
Administrative regions of Nicaragua that have granted concessions to China-linked mining concessions. Map by the author, based on La Gaceta records.
What Are the Companies Involved?
The four companies – Zhong Fu Development, Nicaragua XinXin Linze Minería Group, Thomas Metal, and Brother Metal – have received an estimated total of 21 mining concessions.
The true number may be higher because Nicaragua’s official legal bulletin, La Gaceta, often publishes concessions months after approval, limiting real-time verification. The most recent firm, Brother Metal, first appeared in La Gaceta in February 2025, suggesting that the regime continues expanding concessions to China-linked firms.
Most of these concessions are in the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCN), Chinandega, and Las Segovias Region – areas rich in gold and minerals, but also marked by poverty, marginalized communities, and weak institutional oversight.
According to La Gaceta, each of the companies is represented by a Chinese national who is a resident in Nicaragua.
Feiwu Bian represents Zhong Fu Development S.A. Records state that Bian is a Chinese national and Nicaraguan resident. Zhong Fu Development is allegedly linked to Zhong Fu Invest Group, though little public information exists on its operations outside of China.
Edward Xiang Liu represents Nicaragua XinXin Linze Minería Group S.A. Records state Liu is a Chinese national and Nicaraguan resident.
Catherine Paola Aguilar Velásquez and Xiangming Gu represent Thomas Metal S.A. Aguilar Velásquez is a Nicaraguan national, while Gu is a Chinese national and Nicaraguan resident.
Xiaocun Bao represents Brother Metal S.A. Records state Bao is a Chinese national and Nicaraguan resident.
Their legal presence is also anchored in residency filings. In contrast to earlier actors like Wang Jing – the China-linked businessman behind the failed canal project – these firms lack even the minimal transparency of a public-facing corporate structure. The Diplomat was unable to find contact information for any of the companies to request comment.
A Legal System Tailored to the Regime
While these firms have seen a boom in concessions being granted, other foreign companies have seen their previously-granted mining rights revoked. The cancellations were allegedly due to lack of activity, but Nicaragua Investiga reported that some of these foreign firms had recently submitted environmental studies and development plans on mining concessions. In at least one case, no prior warning was given, suggesting the cancellations were politically motivated.
Zhong Fu Development S.A., for instance, received a 6,000-hectare lot previously held by Compañía Minera Internacional S.A. (COMINTSA) – just months before COMINTSA was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.
To understand the context, one must examine Nicaragua’s recent legal reforms. In 2022, following U.S. sanctions on the state-owned ENIMINAS, the Sandinista National Assembly reformed Law 387 to allow concession transfers without public bidding, weaken social oversight mechanisms, and concentrate decision-making in the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM). According to Expediente Público, since ENIMINAS’s designation, the regime has relied heavily on the General Directorate of Mines (DGM) to manage most mining operations on its behalf.
Then, in November 2024, the regime amended Article 102 of the constitution – alongside the same infamous reform that formalized the co-presidency of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. This amendment opened the door to the “rational exploitation” of natural resources and paved the way for projects like the regime’s elusive interoceanic canal.
In practice, these reforms paved to way for China-linked companies to operate in Nicaragua with little oversight. Between 2022-2024, Divergentes reported, 45.9 percent of all mining concessions through the MEM were granted to Zhong Fu Development, Xinxin Linze, and Thomas Metal.
What Now? The Concession Countdown
Nicaraguan law requires companies to begin extraction within four years of receiving a concession. For these deals, the deadlines start to hit sometime in 2026. The transition from legal concession to physical activity will test Nicaragua’s institutional capacity, and China’s willingness to engage more visibly.
As of June 2025, there is no public evidence that these companies have begun large-scale extraction. But confusing the lack of visible activity with a lack of strategic intention would be naïve.
In 2022, a video captured dozens of FAW trucks flying Chinese flags entering a town in the Mining Triangle under National Police escort. In 2023, Centroamérica 360 documented operations by firms like Santa Rita Mining and HYTS Resources – even before formal diplomatic ties with China were restored.
In February 2024, the municipality of Mulukukú posted on Facebook announcing the start of construction by XinXin Linze, including offices and a dining hall. While no mention of extraction was made, this clearly marks the company’s physical and logistical presence on Nicaraguan soil.
Even without confirmed extraction (yet), China-linked companies have amassed nearly 2.36 percent of national territory. These documents grant China a durable presence in Nicaragua’s primary resource sectors – one that may evolve into broader logistical or dual-use infrastructure development.
The Geopolitics of Gold
Nicaragua, though modest globally, is Central America’s largest gold producer. It is another link in a regional chain that includes Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela. Gold was Nicaragua’s top export in 2024, generating more than $1.35 billion.
Meanwhile, in December 2024 China’s central bank resumed gold purchases after a six-month pause. Gold is strategic – both industrially and financially – making it a key asset in challenging U.S. dominance, which China seeks to reduce.
Strategic competition isn’t confined to the South China Sea or cyberspace. It’s also unfolding quietly, through Central American mining concessions buried in official decrees issued an unaccountable regime using laws that no citizen voted for.
These mining concessions help the Ortega-Murillo regime bypass U.S. sanctions and legitimize opaque governance under a legal guise. The Nicaragua model may serve as a blueprint for Chinese engagement with authoritarian states – Chinese mining activity in Nicaragua is already referenced in Iranian diplomatic reporting. As adversarial regimes highlight these viable alternatives to Western alignment, the concessions take on symbolic value in the global contest over political structures and legitimacy.
