The commercial, political, military and cultural activities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Latin America over the past two decades are indirectly fostering a less democratic and secure region. The added value of extracting the region’s resources and providing goods and services to its markets are increasingly directed towards Chinese companies and investors, rather than the Latin American peoples.
China’s efforts, usually spearheaded by its state-owned companies and supported by the government, seek to ensure access to strategic resources, food, markets and technologies in order to obtain the greatest possible added value for Chinese entities.
Within this framework, China’s particular advances include the “connectivity” of Latin American economies, including ports, land and maritime transport, electricity generation and transmission, telecommunications, e-commerce and finance, among others.
The Asian power’s efforts are supported by its considerable soft power, which often takes advantage not only of admiration for Chinese culture or the country as a political and development model, but also by the hope of a political, corporate or personal “benefit”, which it is not necessarily inconsistent with the distrust that some in the region have of the practices of the government and its companies.
China’s soft power is reinforced by its people-to-people diplomacy (paradiplomacy), including the 44 Confucius Institutes that attract Latin Americans interested in China, as well as the Hanban Scholarships (a public institution that reports directly to the Ministry of Education). of China), which allow the most able to study in the Asian country, which may allow them to occupy commercial and diplomatic positions vis-à-vis China in their own governments in the future — while paying for travel for academics, politicians, journalists and government officials to a certain extent, it places them in a compromising position when it comes to criticizing the country.
In this way, China and its companies, by pursuing their own interests, have become incubators of authoritarian regimes, as populist elites consolidate power, hijack their democracies and act against the private sector.
The Chinese government, for example, sells military and electronic systems to its authoritarian partners to help them stay in power by controlling their populations. This is mutually beneficial, as these governments then supply China with commodities and contract Chinese companies for projects on often lucrative terms.
Regarding the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty, China not only promotes the strategic objective of isolating the island, but also influences countries for a “change of course” through the signing of multiple, often non-transparent, memoranda of understanding that open the economy, infrastructure, the education system and other areas.
The Chinese government’s military and police activities, in and with the region’s leaders, seek to encourage them, while selling or donating to them military transport and fighter planes, helicopters, patrol cars, armored vehicles, construction, motorcycles and police patrol cars, and dual-purpose vehicles.
Furthermore, China regularly takes Latin American military leaders to mainland China to provide training courses and military education. In turn, it sends members of the People’s Liberation Army (EPL) to take courses in Latin America, to carry out periodic and regular institutional visits, and the Chinese navy itself makes stopovers at ports in the region.
In fact, there have been 20 Chinese military detachments and visits by 200 senior PLA defense officials to the region over the past two decades. And it is understood that, in the context of a conflict with the United States, such exchanges facilitate the PLA’s ability to deploy in the region, even in the absence of a formal military base or an alliance agreement.
In this context, the Covid-19 pandemic paved the way for a significant expansion of China’s presence in Latin America. In addition to China’s vaccine diplomacy, the economic and fiscal difficulties related to the pandemic in Latin America have raised the importance of the People’s Republic of China as a buyer of Latin American minerals and food products. And, in this context, Chinese decisions to lend or invest money in the region have strengthened its position in negotiations with Latin American governments.
