In recent years, the global trend of miners "going abroad" has come and gone, with enough pitfalls in compliance, energy, security, and costs to fill a book. But now the industry consensus has returned to one statement: Looking at global mining, the cheapest, safest, and most worry-free place is still China. When you pull together the costs of electricity, maintenance, labor, efficiency, and engineering capabilities, the overall cost remains a world-class ceiling. Some answers become clearer only after going around in circles.