Just days after Donald Trump’s victory in the US election, President Xi Jinping (習近平) set off for Latin America – his third trip to the region since taking office in early 2013.
Beijing has laid out a new road map for its relations with Latin American and Caribbean countries in a strategic push to expand its clout on the continent.
China’s growing interest in Latin America is raising many questions in the West, especially in the United States, which has considered the region its backyard since it adopted the Monroe Doctrine in the 1820s. That doctrine states US opposition to any outside intervention in North or South American affairs – and says any such action will be viewed as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States”.
China maps new road to Latin America to rival and check US influence
This closer engagement with Latin American countries coincides with a US president-elect who has vowed to scrap regional trade deals, build a wall on the Mexico border and deport undocumented immigrants.
The following year, Beijing signed a slew of agreements with Latin American countries promising to double bilateral trade to US$500 billion and increase the total stock of investment between them from less than US$100 billion to US$250 billion within ten years.
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China sees its relationship with these countries as primarily economic rather than political or ideological.