By the early 20th century, foreign land holdings in Brazil were relatively limited. This gradually changed from the middle of the century, and with the inwards agricultural expansion from the 1970-1980s, foreign rural establishments increased markedly ( Sauer & Leite 2012, p.513). In 1971, foreign land purchases were regulated through law no.5.709, but its statutes were vague, and became subjected to many posterior alterations ( BRAZIL Lei 5.709, 1971). Due to the intention of attracting foreign capital, the law was never implemented vigorously ( Sauer & Leite 2012, p.507). A constitutional amendment from 1995 eliminated the juridical distinction between national and foreign capital, which effectively exempted foreign land buyers from obtaining a special authorization ( Nakatani et al., 2014 , p.70). As the land rush intensified throughout the 1990s, land tenure conflict became widespread, affecting millions of peasants and resulting in violent clashes and fatalities throughout the country ( Simmons 2005, p.308). Large-scale land deals involving both foreign and domestic agro-industrial conglomerates nonetheless accelerated from around 2008 ( Pitta, Boechat & Mendoça 2017; Sauer 2010, p.72-73).

In 2008, the Chinese Chongqing Grain Group signaled its intent to purchase 200.000 hectares of land for soy production in the Western region of the state of Bahia. This announcement drew much public attention, and preoccupations also rose within large parts of Brazilian agribusiness. In May 2010, the President of the Brazilian Association of Soy Producers (APROSOJA), Glauber Silveira, expressed concerns about the estimated 1 million hectares of land possessed by foreign individuals and capital funds. Silveira referred to Chinese investments as a threat to Brazilian producers, and highlighted the importance of maintaining national control of agricultural production ( Um milhão de hectares já são de estrangeiros 2010). Resentment towards Chinese investment amongst both industrialists and the landed elite materialized in a joint campaign, highlighting their supposedly politically driven nature, and defending a tightening of regulation. These mobilizations’ central figureheads were the Depute Homero Pereira, from the de-facto right-wing Partido da República, and former Minister of Finance, Delfim Neto. ( Oliveira 2018, p.124).

The campaign against Chinese land purchases resonated strongly within Brazilian media outlets and produced a negative framing as part of the strategy to garner political support for regulatory action. In 2010, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo described how foreign land purchases amounted to the equivalent territory to 22 football fields every hour, and referred to this development as a “foreign invasion” ( Estrangeiros compram 22 campos de futebol por hora 2010). In an editorial text, the conservative newspaper Estadão expressed alarm about Chinese land purchases, which were associated with neo-colonialism, and cited Delfim Neto who stated that “after buying Africa, the Chinese are now attempting to buy Brazil” ( China compra terras no Brasil 2010). The editorial piece highlighted the Chongqing Grain Group’s attempted deal in West Bahia, and described it as part of a wider Chinese power-seeking strategy (Ibid). The campaign bought into broader narratives of Chinese global land grabbing, but also converged with dominant storylines within other business sectors about this Asian economy’s negative economic impact on Brazil, giving voice to what has been referred to as a “anti-Chinese protectionism” ( Powell 2012, p.201).

Increasing inflows of foreign capital into Brazilian agriculture had resulted in rising land prices, which frustrated many medium-sized producers who were too small to benefit from these investments through partnerships ( Oliveira 2017, p.152-153). The president of the Brazilian Vegetable Oil Industry Association (ABIOVE) also expressed clear concerns regarding the Chinese investors, affirming that “they are looking for land, looking for reliable partners. But what they would like to do is run the show alone” ( Chinas interest in Farmland makes Brazil Uneasy 2011). The fact that attempted Chinese land purchases gained so much negative attention compared other foreign land deals has also been attributed to circumstances such as local politics in Bahia, a negative bias within the press, ² and possibly also a degree of “sinophobia” ( Oliveira 2018). An interviewee thus characterizes this as a “loose critique” based on “news stories” rather than “factual reporting”. ³

The campaign against foreign land deals also included smallholder organizations and NGOs. In 2010, social movements organized a campaign to establish a general ceiling for rural property, with a strong emphasis on halting large-scale foreign land purchases ( Sauer & Leite 2012, p.520). William Clementino from the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) thus argued that the “foreignization” of land did not constitute a viable development path, as it raised prices on rural property, and thereby obstructed land reform ( Câmara dos Deputados 2011a). On the discursive level, these mobilizations pitted the notion of development through agro-industrial expansion against the principles of food security, sovereignty, and land reform (Castro, Hershaw & Sauer 2017, p.92). Carlos Vicente, from the Spanish NGO, GRAIN, emphasized the negative implications of foreign land deals in Brazil in terms of perpetuating monoculture and augmenting vulnerability to speculative investment ( Câmara dos Deputados 2011a). Prior to these mobilizations, left-leaning political factions and social movements supporting the incumbent Workers Party had similarly backed restrictions of foreign land purchases ( Oliveira 2017, p.152). Coupled with dissatisfaction on behalf of smallholder segments with the Lula government’s alleged lack of attention to land reform, and with the accelerating process of land concentration, such demands resonated strongly. ⁴ Restrictive regulation on foreign land deals could thereby marry a reaffirmation of the government’s support base with a strengthening of ties with groups within the highly politically organized agribusiness sector.

The negative public attention towards foreign land purchases eventually spurred the Lula administration to respond through restrictions in form of executive measures ( Sauer 2010, p.73). The National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), which is directly subjected to the presidency, therefore requested that the Attorney General of the Union (AGU) revised the legal decision GQ no.181 of 1998, which in effect averted control with land acquisition by foreign enterprises in Brazil ( Sauer 2010, p.83). Furthermore, in 2010 joint pressures by members of the presidential cabinet and Federal Public Ministry spurred the Attorney General to reinterpret the law no. 5.709 of 1971 on foreign land holdings towards a more restrictive understanding. The new version imposed stronger limits on land acquisitions by foreign individuals and enterprises, and for Brazilian companies with more than 50% foreign capital, while requiring stricter registration of completed land acquisitions. It also prohibited foreign land acquisitions above 50 MEIs - a measure varying from 5-100 hectares depending on the municipality - and foreign possession of more than 25% of the territory of any single municipality ( Câmara dos Deputados 2011b). Although the Attorney General, Luís Inácio Adams, stated that the decision was not directly aimed at limiting Chinese land purchases, he did take notice of Chinese land grabs in Latin America and Africa, underscoring that “nothing is preventing investment from happening, but it will be regulated” ( Chinas interest in Farmland makes Brazil Uneasy 2011). This converges with dominant scholarly interpretations of the decision as a direct attempt to limit Chinese land acquisitions, ( Pereira & de Castro Neves 2011, p.6; Myers & Jie 2015, p.16-17; Wilkinson & Wesz 2013, p.255; Oliveira 2018; Powell 2012, p.206).

In spite of resistance from subsectors within Brazilian agriculture, the Chinese land investments were nonetheless defended by large swaths of Brazilian agribusiness. Moreira Mendes, leader of the agribusiness caucus in Congress, thus emphasized that restrictions on foreigners’ land purchases would discourage investment, and that mechanisms to ensure sovereignty already were embedded within the Brazilian Constitution ( Câmara dos Deputados 2011b). Similarly, Kátia Abreu, head of the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA), defended international land investment as an important means to attract capital to sectors such as pulp, ethanol, and orange production, and claimed that resistance to foreign economic participation was due to “harmful entrenched preconceptions” in Latin America ( Câmara dos Deputados 2011a). The CNA thereby continued to work in close conjunction with Chinese authorities and private sector representatives in order to attract them to invest in Brazilian agriculture, and in 2012 the entity organized public events with this purpose in mind ( CNA quer investimentos chineses no agronegócio brasileiro 2012; Plano de Voo” 2012).

The reinterpretation of the law 5.709 meant that in spite of not being outright cancelled, the West Bahia land deal was stalled ( Myers & Jie 2015, p.11). Yet, due to the support for foreign land investment from the agribusiness caucus within Congress, the executive’s steps towards tightening regulation were not followed up by legislative action ( Las barreras a la extranjerización 2013). The measures to limit foreign land deals thereby became somewhat isolated and left some significant room for circumvention. Apart from the flexible definition of the permitted maximum for foreign land holdings, the INCRA did not dispose of effective fiscal mechanisms to monitor such deals ( Sauer & Leite 2012, p.521). Furthermore, President Dilma Rousseff, who assumed office in 2011, along with her Minister of Agriculture, Wagner Rossi, were also more inclined towards easing restrictions on international agricultural investments. Reports of foregone foreign investments of up to US$15 billion therefore made Rossi raise the possibility of leasing land to potential global investors ( Brazil mulls leasing farmland to foreigners 2011).

Rather than completely hampering Chinese interest in Brazilian agriculture, the legal restrictions appear to have reshaped Chinese commodity enterprises’ strategies towards acquiring agricultural produce through predefined contracts with producers, and shifted attention towards the processing and logistics sub-sectors within the agro-industrial complex ( Wilkinson & Wesz 2013, p.255; Oliveira 2018, p.125). By 2013, reports by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) suggested that Chinese and Middle Eastern enterprises continued to acquire Brazilian farmland, through the use of strawmen ( Estrangeiros já têm US$ 60 bilhões em terra no Brasil 2013). This situation would latter spark attempts towards legislative changes in the direction of liberalization of land sales by the Temer Administration and the rural caucus in parliament, in early 2017. Thus, although fear of Chinese land grabbing did provide a certain momentum for regulatory measures to halt this development around 2010, since then, forces from within the agribusiness sector appear to have been keen on reversing these provisions.

Although foreign land holdings have long been part of the Argentinean rural economic structure, an accelerated process of land investments began with the crisis of 2001-2002. The devaluation of the Argentinian peso from 2002 became a key factor in attracting foreign capital, which resulted in a large increase in the number and in the size of land transactions ( Costantino 2016, p.139). This spelled the beginning of a period in which many international investors, including state-owned and semi-state enterprises from emerging nations, gained presence within the Argentinean agricultural sector ( Andrieu & Costantino 2017, p.90). The “foreignization” ⁵ of lands became associated with rural conflicts, as agro-industrial development reached areas otherwise essential for the social reproduction of local communities (Ibid). This contention was further fueled by general popular dissatisfaction with the political system in the wake of the crisis, which resulted in a rejection of the neoliberal development trajectory of the 1990s.

Many transactions became centered on the province of Patagonia, which apart from low land prices also was seen as a relatively safe investment destination due to scarce population and resultantly perceived lower potential for conflict ( Vazquez & Sili 2017, p.134). Provincial authorities in Patagonia also sought to attract foreign investments. Meetings were held between the governor of Rio Negro, Miguel Saiz, and different Chinese entities, who stated their interest in investing in the region’s agriculture ( La pelea por la tierra 2011). Reports also suggest that these efforts enjoyed federal support, and that ministers of the former President Nestor Kirchner participated in the delegations which travelled to China to negotiate the deal ( Costantino 2016, p.144). In 2010, Governor Saiz presented an agreement with the Chinese state-owned enterprise Heilongjiang Beidahuang. When presented, the deal had already been signed, and its content was held secret for the public during the negotiations ( GRAIN 2011, p.3). It implied the concession of some 320.000 hectares for production of soy, wheat, and oilseed rape, destined for the Chinese market ( El Sindrome de China 2011). The initial investment of US$1.5 billion would give Beidahuang priority to purchase production output over a 20 year period, and its outlay would be repaid with a 5% annual interest rate. The deal was presented as distinct from a “sale” by governor Saiz, as it was based on contracts with local producers, rather than on acquisition of public lands, and he highlighted its alleged potential to create in the order of 100.000 jobs ( Un acuerdo entre China y Río Negro genera polémica 2011). Local authorities generally acted in a very accommodative manner as a facilitator of the investment project, and appears to have been strongly motivated by the prospects of logistics development and land price increases ( Costantino 2016, p.144).

The Rio Negro project eventually met critique from abroad range of local stakeholders. Mobilizations against the deal grew to comprise of diverse regional and national social organizations, indigenous peoples, students, scientists, labour unions, and local producers and neighbors to the lands in question ⁶ ( Schilan 2012). Environmental specialists raised alarm regarding the deal’s potential impact on a region with scarce water resources, and concerning the zoning of native forests, which made some refer to these plans as an “ecocide” ( GRAIN 2011, p.4). The Argentinean NGO, Grupo de Reflexión Rural, also strongly criticized the introduction of large-scale agro-industrial farming in the region, and the concomitant dedication of local land resources to meeting food demand abroad (Ibid p.5). As the lower Rio Negro valley constitutes the historical homeland of the indigenous Mapuche, this community and the Indigenous Advisory Council (CAI) also became deeply engaged in the protests. The Mapuche was not consulted prior to the agreement, which led to claims that the constitutional statutes regarding indigenous people’s rights had been violated ( COHA 2011).

The framing of the agreement was strongly based on the notion of sovereignty and concerns for the national environmental and cultural heritage. These preoccupations were reflected in the title of a campaign launched by a local NGO, El Foro Permanente por una Vida Digna, which was dubbed, “No Soy, No China: land and food sovereignty for Argentina”. The group strongly rejected the agreement, stressing that “we oppose the agro-export mega-project instrumentalized by the national and local government, which comprises of 320.000 hectares of soil and nature of Rio Negro to be handed over to the authority of the Chinese republic, which violates our sovereign laws, which institutes agriculture without farmers, which pollutes us with its pesticides, and which harms the present and future generations” ( El Sindrome de China 2011) .

The Pastoral Care Ministry of the Catholic Church also disproved of the concession of land to contract farming, stressing how it would jeopardize the future of the Rio Negro residents ( GRAIN 2011, p.6). At a meeting in the city of Bariloche, the local Association of Biologists, along with students from different parts of the country issued a joint declaration of alert, denouncing the “implementation of an agro-industrial and transgenic production model” highlighting the risks for ‘’the native flora and fauna and for the human population’’ ( Río Negro: profesionales y estudiantes 2010). Local socio-environmental concerns were thus married with narratives of the preservation of national sovereignty. This served to establish a connection to storylines revolving around foreign exploitation, which prevailed in the post-neoliberal political period ( Torrado 2016). By buying into nationalistic narratives, the opposition to the Rio Negro project both gained legitimacy, but also created pressures for action from the central political level, which had assumed a strongly sovereignty-focused discourse. This tactic appears to have been relatively successful, as the ruling Kirchnerismo’s local branch, - which regionally constituted the opposition - also became opposed to the agreement. The Minister of Agriculture, Julián Domínguez, also expressed his skepticism in similar terms, stressing that it “appeared as a complex task to live side by side with another sovereign state inside of our own” ( Un acuerdo entre China y Río Negro genera polémica 2011).

President Cristina Kirchner was also pressed by the agribusiness interests in the Argentinean Agrarian Federation (FAA), which wanted regulation of foreign land acquisitions inserted within the legislative agenda. Deputy Pablo Orsolini, from the FAA, also presented the need to limit foreign land deals with a similar sovereignty-based emphasis, stressing that, ‘’we cannot permit that Argentina becomes one of the only countries in the world where it is possible to buy land in unlimited quantities with complete swiftness and impunity’’ ( Afirman que este año podría aprobarse la ley 2011). Although the Kirchner administration took some initial steps to regulate foreign land purchases, a significant amount of internal uncertainty about the appropriateness of this course of action became evident ( Un acuerdo entre China y Río Negro genera polémica 2011). Thus, while announcing the intention to device a law regulating foreign land purchases, Kirchner nonetheless highlighted the importance that this legislation would be tailored so as to avoid any anti-investment bias ( Afirman que este año podría aprobarse la ley 2011). As stated by an Argentinean NGO representative, Kirchner sought to display concern for foreign land grabbing, without having to impose overtly restrictive regulation towards these investments, “I think that it was a way for the Kichner administration to show its awareness about the issue, without treating it in a more profound manner (...) the legal impediments eventually imposed for foreign land purchases were quiet limited”. ⁷ Kirchner’s ambiguity about addressing foreign land deals should be viewed in light of the imperatives imposed by the development model pursued at the time. Thus, in spite of the political shift towards a more left-leaning government from 2003, the continued reliance on agricultural exports resulted in a political amalgam of social redistribution backed by commodity revenues, expressed as a “progressive neo-extractivism” ( Cáceres 2015; Gudynas 2009) which often led economic considerations override socio-environmental concerns.

On April 27, 2011, the law no.26.737, which addressed foreign land acquisition was presented by President Kirchner. The law established a 15% limit for foreign land ownership on the national, provincial, and municipal level, and mandated that no more than 30% of lands in these entities could be owned by any single nationality. It also defined a ceiling of 1000 hectares for land ownership by foreign individuals or economic groups (Ley 26.737). The law has been criticized for not referring to environmental protections, or the rights of workers or the indigenous population, and for lacking a clear definition of foreign ownership ( COHA 2011). Reports that foreign land investments continued through Argentinean investor societies also came to the public’s attention in the following years ( Vazquez & Sili 2017, p.134). Facing prospects of continued transnational capital inflows into Argentinean agriculture, voices from the indigenous movement called for tighter regulation, that also would address the commodification of land ( Las barreras a la extranjerización 2013). As the law no.26.737 did not have any retrospective effect, it did not affect the Rio Negro project. Yet, a ruling from the court in Rio Negro in November 2011 suspended the project on environmental grounds until adequate preventive and precautionary measures could be taken, which eventually led to its definitive cancellation. The ruling was hailed by groups opposed to foreign land investments as a historical precedent for Argentina and all of Latin America, and as an important measure in defense of national food sovereignty ( La justicia frena inversión de China en Río Negro, 2011).

During the 20th century, agricultural expansion in Bolivia has been driven by both internal migration and foreign land acquisition. The two-tracked agricultural development model pursued since the 1940s meant that migrants from the Bolivian highlands received plots of 20-50 hectares for cultivation of domestic food supplies in the lowlands, while capital-strong investors received large tracts between 500-50.000 hectares for export-oriented farming ( McKay & Colque 2016, p.583). From the 1980s, efforts to pursue agro-industrial development were intensified through the Programa de Desarrollo de las Tierras Bajas del Este, comprising mechanization and productive specialization in grains and oilseeds ( Urioste 2008, p.185). As part of this development, foreign agribusiness made incursions into the Bolivian lowlands, particularly the Santa Cruz province. Brazilian producers became strongly integrated within the Bolivian soybean complex, and from the early 1990s towards the harvest season of 2006-2007, they appropriated some 40% of the total area dedicated to soy production ( Urioste 2012, p.447). Foreign land investments have thus become widespread in the Cruzeño soy sector (Bolivia: Más de un millón de hectáreas en manos de extranjeros 2011), and large-scale deals reaching 100.000-200.000 hectares from Argentina, Japan, and Middle Eastern countries have also materialized ( COHA 2011).

For most of the 20th century, the Bolivian regulatory environment for foreign land acquisitions was extremely permissive. Yet, the agrarian laws no.1715 of 1996 and no.3545 of 2006, which subsequently were inscribed in article 396 of the Bolivian Constitution of 2009, explicitly prohibited the sale of land to foreigners by the state ( Constitution Bolivia 2009; Ley no.1715:1996; Ley no.3545:2006). Land deals between private parties, though, could continue unhindered. Although a popular referendum had resulted in the constitutionalization of a 5000 hectare ceiling for foreign land ownership, agribusiness pressures led to a provision which permitted an unrestricted number of associations to each hold 5000 hectares, which essentially invalidated the land ceiling ( McKay & Colque 2016). Furthermore, lack of public oversight meant that until 2010, large cultivated areas were unregistered (Bolivia: Más de un millón de hectáreas en manos de extranjeros 2011).

In the 2000s, this legal milieu provided a fertile context for land acquisition by foreign investors. In 2005, the Chinese Shanghai Pengxin Group purchased 12.500 hectares in the Santa Cruz province which were dedicated to soy, sorghum, and maize production, at the price of US$27 million (GRAIN, 2016). The Pengxin Group engages in a great variety of activities, and apart from agriculture, its sub-branches span from infrastructure, to textile production and research ( A partir del interconectado se plantea una etapa de desarrollo 2010). Although the Pengxin Group often has been associated with the Chinese government’s ‘’going out’’ policy, the decision to invest in Bolivia has likely been made independently by the company ( Jie & Myers 2016, p.106). This is convergent with a trend of increasingly market-based investment by Chinese private, state-owned, and provincial companies in the 2000s ( Myers 2013). In contrast to other major land deals involving Chinese actors in South America, the Pengxin agreement did not incite significant negative reactions ⁸ . Although the Bolivian NGO Fundación Tierra publicly contested the deal as violating the constitutional ceiling of 5000 hectares, the issue did not gain salience within the public sphere ⁹ . Strong reactions, which did otherwise usually accompany extractive investments in oil, natural gas, and infrastructure projects in Bolivia did thereby not result from the deal with the Chinese Pengxin Group, which to some extent, went relatively unnoticed ¹⁰ . This warrants analysis of the domestic sources of potential contestation, which in the other cases of land deals examined reacted differently to Chinese land purchases.

Positioned at the margins of agro-industrial transformations, smallholders reactions become particularly relevant to analyze, because a latent potential for contestation oftentimes can be found within these segments. Yet, the particular configuration of capital within the rural productive organization in Santa Cruz nonetheless seems to have discouraged smallholder protest against the advance of agribusiness. Due to lack of capital, small farmers have been unable to engage in soy production, which has made them rent their land to larger soy producers. As petty bourgeoisie rentiers, many do not identify with the landless peasant movement, and have therefore not wanted to challenge the development of the soy complex, in spite of their essential exclusion from the productive activities within this. ( McKay & Colque 2016) Thus, the Cruceño smallholders’ “adverse incorporation in the soy complex has impeded overt forms of resistance” ( McKay 2017a).

Considering the cases from Brazil and Argentina, domestic agribusiness could be considered as another potential source of contestation of the Chinese incursions into Bolivian agriculture. Yet, the presence of international investors has nevertheless been well received by Cruceño elites. As foreign agribusiness brings capital and access to knowhow and new market opportunities, dominant classes have not sought to obstruct its entry ( Urioste 2012, p.453). Local cattle ranchers, which hold a large proportion of uncultivated areas, have benefitted from selling or renting their land to foreign investors ( Urioste 2012, p.452). The same openness to foreign investment appears to characterize Bolivian soy producers, who have encouraged this as an important source of input provision and technical modernization ( McKay 2018). Cooperative relations thereby appear to characterize the manner that land-holding classes in Santa Cruz have engaged with foreign agricultural investors, as is highlighted by an interviewee from a Bolivian NGO “In general the agribusiness and landholding elites are very positively minded towards the capital flows towards the agricultural sector in Santa Cruz. The landholders are strongly opposed to every law that might restrict the purchases of land on behalf of foreigners.” ¹¹ .

Finally, the Bolivian state does not appear particularly skeptical towards agro-industrialization, nor very proactive in limiting this development. Thus, despite a discursive distancing from the Latifundio and agribusiness, the state has often facilitated foreign land acquisitions (Bolivia: Más de un millón de hectáreas en manos de extranjeros 2011). An NGO representative even describes foreign land purchases as a “taboo”, oftentimes avoided within public discourses ¹² . The Morales government has furthermore been active in promoting the proliferation of an agro-industrial rural development model, with extensive plans aiming towards the annual expansion of the agricultural frontier of around 1 million hectares ( McKay 2017a). The state has furthermore been criticized for adopting a rather permissive stance towards illegal land transfers (Sugieren leyes que prohíban venta de tierras 2011). This becomes reflected by the fact, that there have been no serious attempts at clearly registering foreign land acquisitions within public records ¹³ . Official rhetoric, revolving around narratives of “agrarian revolution” or “food sovereignty”, has thus increasingly diverged from the effectively pursued policies of “reconstituated neo-liberalism”, which lead to marginal changes but no structural transformation of the economy ( McKay & Colque 2016, p.588). This also includes either the cooption of social movements, or the introduction of severe punishment for land occupations, which constitute peasant movements’ main instrument of resistance ( McKay & Colque 2016 pp.605-606).

Despite the absence of major protests in the Santa Cruz province, some voices on the national level did speak in favor of tighter regulation of foreign land acquisitions. In 2011, former land minister Alejandro Almaraz stressed the need to restrict land sales to foreigners, and to keep clearer records of land holdings (Sugieren leyes que prohíban venta de tierras 2011), - an objective that was backed by different social movements ( Encuentro Plurinacional en su etapa definitoria 2012). Eventually, in December 2013, the law no.477 “against land subjection and trafficking” was passed. Yet, rather than introducing any significant new measures to limit foreign land acquisitions, the law established stricter punishments, ranging between 3-8 years of prison for illegal appropriation and sale of public lands, which already was enshrined in the Bolivian Constitution. The law also banned official recognition of foreign owned land which did not serve an economic social purpose (Ley no. 477:2013). Law no. 477 appears most significant in terms of regulating existing foreign rural land possessions in Bolivia, while still keeping a window open for international investment. The harsh punishments which it contained may indeed have served the interest of land holders ¹⁴ , as they also applied to land occupations conducted by peasant movements. So, in contrast to cases in Argentina and Brazil, the law did not materialize due to fears of increased Chinese land acquisition, neither did it significantly halt foreign land deals. After the law was passed, the Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB) and the Confederation of Intercultural Communities of Bolivia (CCIB) continued to push for restrictions of foreign land purchases. Gustavo Aliaga from the CCIB thus underscored that regulations still favored foreigners more than Bolivian producers, while Rodolfo Machaca from the CSUTCB claimed that Brazilian, Chinese, and Russian land grabbers continued unhindered ( Piden que el Gobierno elimine la extranjerización de tierras 2014).