Taking advantage of the vacuum of strategic policies for Latin America on the part of the United States, China deepened its relations with the region during the Covid pandemic.
The agenda has grown around three axes in particular: trade, investment and joint actions against the pandemic.
In the latter, Beijing expanded its range of political and economic actions, offering what Washington was unable to provide: vaccines, respirators and other essential medical equipment to fight the coronavirus.
Several Latin American countries turned to the Chinese government and companies to obtain these essential materials.
In the case of Brazil, with a president often critical of Beijing, state governors built these bridges with China, making their own agreements in absentia from Brasilia.
The growth of China’s influence in Latin America comes amid crises in the United States, with erratic diplomatic initiatives for the region, which have often been highlighted more by hostility against the regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela than a constructive agenda with major regional partners on issues such as trade and migration.
There are still no clear guidelines on what will change under President Joe Biden, whose Latin American policy has been guided more by emergency response than a long-term strategic vision.
The deepening also took place through the expansion of investments in the key sector of information technology.
Amid trade disputes between China and the United States, Latin American countries have chosen to keep the doors open for Huawei to operate, allowing the Chinese giant to provide equipment for the implementation of the 5G internet standard.
It is a different pattern from the one that has marked the action of Australia, Canada or the European Union, in which vetoes or other restrictions on Chinese investments prevail.
Another important issue is the way in which Central America has become a stage for disputes between China, the United States and Taiwan.
Since 2008, several countries in the region have stopped diplomatically recognizing the island and have established relations with Beijing. This happened with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The president-elect of Honduras has announced that she will do the same, further reducing the 14 states that currently recognize Taiwan — less than half of what it was 20 years ago.
Beijing also fills a vacuum arising from the difficulties of Latin American countries in promoting regional integration in the midst of ideological polarization and partisan disputes that have crossed borders.
The region has not been able to respond effectively to the crisis in Venezuela, for example.
Brazil under the Jair Bolsonaro government withdrew from integration initiatives such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur).
China’s own growing influence has divided parties and governments, ranging from Bolsonaro’s hostility to the enthusiasm of Pacific nations seeking free trade agreements with Beijing.
Uruguay also wants to sign a similar treaty, despite Mercosur restrictions.
Relationships already growing in recent years
In the midst of all this, the CELAC forum with China took place in December, a meeting that highlighted the importance of the organization as the main channel for dialogue and cooperation between the Asian country and the region.
But Beijing’s relations with Latin American countries had already been on a remarkable rise since before.
In the first two decades of the 21st century, economic exchange between China and Latin America went from small levels to a considerable force. Bilateral trade has exceeded US$300 billion a year, and the stock of Chinese capital in the region exceeds US$110 billion.
The engine of this expansion was the accelerated growth of China and its demand for agricultural and mineral commodities exported by the region, such as meats, copper, iron ore, oil and soybeans.
The Chinese market has often become the largest or second largest for regional foreign trade, especially for South American countries – in Mexico and Central America the US economic predominance continues.
In the wake of trade, Chinese investments came, generally to facilitate the extraction and transport of Latin American commodities exported to the Asian country.
These financial flows are concentrated in sectors such as mining and energy, funding the construction of infrastructure such as roads, railways, mines and pipelines.
In Brazil there is a different pattern, with Chinese investments focused on the generation, distribution and transmission of electricity for the Brazilian domestic market.
Stronger economic ties also led to changes in diplomacy, with the construction of a political framework to expand channels of dialogue and cooperation.
Since the late 2000s, China has paid more attention to Latin America, with the publication of two White Papers with official guidelines for this relationship and the expansion of its strategic partnerships in the region.
From the original articulation with Brazil, in 1993, Beijing formulated similar initiatives with eight other Latin American countries, in addition to the peculiar ties it develops with Cuba, due to the similarity of the political system.
China also started to have an official and permanent presence in Latin American regional integration spaces, such as CELAC and the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank).
These are measures that represent the consolidation of its influence as a local actor.
Nineteen of the region’s 33 countries have joined the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global infrastructure investment project, but so far the largest Latin American nations (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia) have opted out.
Relations with China represent a good opportunity for Latin America to face problems such as the pandemic and the challenge of recovering its economies, but the region needs to improve its integration processes, in order to extract as much as possible from its dialogue with Beijing and obtain more resources in its negotiations with Washington.
