Custom Search

China/Latin America Relations

Submitted by fyl on Mon, 2009/05/11 - 19:38.
0
University of Southern Califorina's US-China Institute has a very interesting article on China's planned relationship with Latin America. Besides offering a lot of facts, graphs and numbers it talks about why China is stepping up it's relations with the region.
Jiang Shixue, Vice President of the Chinese Association of Latin American Studies in Beijing, argues the region is important to China's vision of a harmonious world, a world of peace and tolerant of national differences. "China needs to unite together with countries in all parts of the world to achieve this," he said.

Fostering economic exchange and growth is key to this. Trade in 2007 between both regions broke a $100 billion benchmark set by President Hu Jintao in 2004. Bilateral trade for 2008 increased 39% from 2007 to over US$143 billion.

‹ Press Freedom in Honduras Journalist Going to Nicaragua Causes Flight to be Diverted ›

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Harmony, peace & tolerance = BS

Submitted by Daddy-YO on Wed, 2009/05/13 - 17:23.

China needs the resources and they've got the money, despite having more poor than all latinamerican nations combined. The USC article states, "Latin America is vital to China as a major diplomatic battle ground with Taiwan." Note that on the trade map Nicaragua is one of the few latinamerican countries that still maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan. They still run a few Zona Franca businesses. Nicaraguan labor is cheap for the Taiwanese, not relative to Chinese labor, however.

After Costa Rica officially broke ties with Taiwan, I recall, President Arias (Nobel Peace prize winner?) asked the Dalai Lama to cancel (not postpone) his visit (so the Chinese wouldn't be offended). Forget Tibet. Money rules. Chinese "harmony, peace & tolerance" stomped Tibet.

Though Obama came into the fifth Summit of the Americas last month as a world-class 'star', his efforts bombed. The ALBA members (despite Chavez shaking Obama's hand, saying, "I want to be your friend.") refused to sign the summit communiqué -- more a formality than a commitment (Diplomats had worked for a year with Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela on its wording to get a consensus.)

At the meeting Nica Ortega said, "capitalism is putting an end to mankind . . . destroying all of us and leading to the end of the world..." though I'm sure he didn't mean to include Chinese-style capitalism.

Is this the end of any possible inter-American union, a la EU? Will autocratic China now crack the money-whip over these ‘under-developed’ nations of Latin America to lead them into modernity? Perhaps Latin America will be scheduled for a 'Cultural Revolution', as the Maoists of the continent show signs of revival.