Mes Aynak, Afghanistan Brent Huffman | Saving Mes Aynak

A controversial Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan has run into complications after the executive leading the $3 billion project was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for corruption. Shen Heting, the former general manager of the state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC), in 2007 signed a 30-year lease to build a open-pit copper mine in a place called Mes Aynak. The site is occupied by a 5,000-year-old, walled Buddhist city, and China's determination to extract copper from the area has drawn sharp criticism from archaeologists and others. China has a big appetite for copper, an industrial metal whose price has risen more than 23 percent in the last 12 months.

Security concerns have delayed work on the project since 2007, and copper has yet to be mined from the area. The United States and other Western nations have been fighting fundamentalist insurgents in Afghanistan since 2001. According to the documentary film "Saving Mes Aynak," the mine would in effect destroy the ancient city, though MCC and the Afghan government claim that they will "move" the city in order to extract the more than $100 billion of copper deposited directly beneath it. CNBC was unable to reach MCC for comment via phone or email. The Chinese embassy in Kabul did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If completed, the Chinese copper mine would be a major source of revenue and employment for Afghans, according to Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.

Expulsion is a career-ender