The Financial Post reports in its Saturday edition that after spending billions of dollars and two decades trying to build a mine on the border of Chile and Argentina, Barrick Gold is reverting to a predictable strategy: It wants to partner with a Chinese company. The Post's Gabriel Friedman writes that earlier this month, Barrick announced that it asked Shandong Gold Group, a smaller, younger, less-well-known state-owned Chinese company, to study whether its long-delayed Pascua-Lama mine could be economically built if the Chilean part of the deposit were left in the ground. It is far from Barrick's first partnership with a Chinese company, but in the past it partnered by selling stakes in its mines and forming joint ventures. Now, Barrick is pivoting from asset sales for debt reduction to growth, and bringing a Chinese company into its fold this time as a source of technical expertise and influence, in addition to capital. As mining companies have struggled to raise money, many have turned to Chinese, often state-owned, companies, which have evolved from a source of capital into various types of partnerships and leadership roles. Many mining executives see these relationships as vital to meet their financing needs.