China-Latin America and the Caribbean

Assessment and Outlook

Thierry Kellner, Sophie Wintgens, Thierry Kellner, Sophie Wintgens

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000384703
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Relaciones internacionales

This book assesses the political, economic and geopolitical dynamics that China's presence has initiated throughout Latin America and the Caribbean between 2008 and 2020.

Written by experts across three continents, contributions to this edited volume explore the bilateral relations that China has developed with almost all Latin American and Caribbean countries, charting both the benefits they have brought and the problems that these relations have created for local actors. The book analyses the emergence of new forms of "dependence", considers issues such as the existence of a deindustrialization phenomenon throughout Latin America and ultimately questions whether China and the United States are engaged in a zero-sum game in the region. It also investigates challenges that the densification of the web of China's relations and exchanges with Latin America and the Caribbean countries pose; not only to the United States and European countries, as traditional partners of these states, but also to Latin American regionalism.

Including an extensive set of case studies and local, regional and global-level analysis, China-Latin America and the Caribbean provides an empirically rich resource for students and scholars of Chinese foreign and economic policy, Latin America, the Caribbean and wider geopolitics.

Part I
China-Latin American and the Caribbean relationships

What is at stake?

1
The opportunities and challenges of the BRI in Latin America

A view from China

Liu Jianhua

Introduction

In autumn 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping put forward major initiatives to jointly build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road during his visit to Kazakhstan and Indonesia. He stressed that the countries concerned should create a “Win-Win Community of Destiny” and “Community of Destiny” for common development and prosperity, aimed at promoting global integration development, and strengthening economic and trade exchanges and cooperation. As of December 2019, China has signed a total of 200 “Belt and Road cooperation” documents with 138 countries and 30 international organizations.¹ The Latin American countries are an important part of the developing countries group, a group not to be underestimated internationally. Considering the LAC countries as the natural extension of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is conducive to expanding the geographical coverage of the BRI. In particular, President Xi Jinping has visited Latin America five times since 2013, and formulated policy concepts such as “1 + 3 + 6” practical cooperation framework and strategic ideas for building a community with a shared future between China and Latin America.² In November 2016, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China issued the second “China’s Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean”, which has comprehensively and clearly explained the initiative and policy proposals for Latin America and indicated that China-Latin America strategic synergy and pragmatic cooperation had accelerated in an all-round way.

1 Latin America becomes an essential part of the BRI

According to “Vision and Action to Promote the Co-construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century” (hereinafter “Vision and Action”), jointly released in March 2015 by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, the “Belt and Road” runs through Eurasia and Africa, with an active East Asian economic circle and a developed European economic circle. The Silk Road Economic Belt is to link China to Europe through Central Asia and Russia and through Central and Western Asia towards the Mediterranean Sea. The focus of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is to cross the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean from China’s coastal ports to Europe, and the South China Sea to the South Pacific from China’s coastal ports.³ “Vision and Action” therefore did not initially include any Latin American countries.

In May 2017, at the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) International Cooperation Summit Forum hosted in Beijing, China’s President Xi Jinping said in his opening speech that the “One Belt, One Road” originates from China, but belongs to the world. OBOR construction spans different regions, different development stages and different civilizations, which is an open and inclusive cooperation platform and a global public product jointly created by all parties. It focuses on the Eurasian continent and is open to all like-minded friends. It does not exclude or target any party.⁴

Nearly 20 leaders (officials and heads of regional organizations) from LAC countries attended this BRI Summit. They expressed their willingness to promote regional and national development strategies and the BRI to accelerate infrastructure construction in the Southern Hemisphere and promote “South-South cooperation”. This reflects the BRI to meet the development needs of Latin American countries and respond to the urgent desire of Latin American countries to strengthen connectivity and mutually beneficial cooperation. In January 2018, the Second Ministerial Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum adopted the “One Belt and One Road” Special Statement. The two sides agreed that the joint construction of the BRI will provide a new concept for China-Latin America comprehensive cooperative partnership, with new vitality and new prospects. According to Alicia Balsena, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, “the development of the strategic cooperation between Latin America and China has become a consensus in Latin America”.⁵ China is an “essential partner” in Latin America. At present, Latin America has initiated the relevant assessment process for joining the BRI construction.⁶

At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera Echeñique paid a state visit to China from 24 to 28 April 2019 and attended the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. As of 30 April 2019, China has signed cooperation documents with 19 CELAC countries to jointly advance the BRI.

2 Historical origins

As early as 1565, the maritime trade route between China, Philippines and New Spain has been opened. The merchant ships that set out from the Chinese province of Fujian were filled with silk and porcelain. They sailed to Manila (Philippines), where the goods were carried to the port of Acapulco (Mexico), by a galleon known as the “galleon of Manila” or the “Ship of China”. In 1575, Guangzhou-Manila-Acapulco Line was opened.⁷ Over the next 250 years, Eastern silk, porcelain, handicraft products and some advanced technology production entered Latin America. They have promoted the development of this region. At the same time, special crops such as corn and American pepper were introduced to China from the Pacific, which greatly contributed to the development of Chinese agriculture. The “Silk Road on the Sea” has thus become a historical model for the exchange of human civilizations, which has made valuable contributions to the development of world economy and science and technology.⁸ Today, the BRI is a comprehensive inheritance and transcendence of the ancient Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road. As a result, when trade began to grow rapidly in the mid-1990s, the American media also commented on the “re-emergence of the new Silk Road”.⁹ Today, the Fujian province, once the starting point of the “Silk Road on the Sea”, is also positioned as the “core area of the Maritime Silk Road in the 21st century” in the “Belt and Road” vision document.¹⁰ As an important part of the Maritime Silk Road, Latin America is naturally linked to today’s initiative.

3 BRI and the China-LAC community with a shared future

On 18 July 2014, Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech entitled “Strive to build a community of shared future” at a meeting of leaders of China and Latin America in Brasilia.¹¹ In his report to the 19th National Congress, he reiterated his call:

The people of all countries work together to build a community of human destinies and build a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and tolerance, and a clean and beautiful world (…) The Chinese people is ready to work with the people of other countries to promote the construction of a community of human destiny and create a better future for mankind.¹²

Policy communication, strategic docking and seeking common ground, while reserving differences have become the distinctive features of the BRI.¹³ It covers energy, infrastructure cooperation and trade in food, commodities and manufactured goods. The construction of Belt and Road will serve the countries along the route and improve people’s lives, which is undoubtedly an integral part of the Community o...