China's Latin business trip
The New York Times Friday, November 26, 2004
Latin America has not received much sustained attention from Washington recently, but it has begun drawing remarkable high-level interest from Beijing. While President George W. Bush managed only a four-hour stopover in Colombia on his way home from the Asia-Pacific summit meeting last weekend in Chile, China's president, Hu Jintao, has just completed a 12-day four-country trip in which he announced more than $30 billion in new Chinese investments in Latin America. Hu also signed several long-term supply contracts to fuel Beijing's torrid economic expansion for years to come.
.
China's growing economic involvement is largely positive for Latin America. It brings much-needed capital for modernizing creaky infrastructure and expanding the production of raw materials from mining to agriculture. There will also be painful adjustments, however, as swelling volumes of new Chinese manufacturing exports displace less efficient Latin American competitors.
.
For the United States, still the region's largest economic partner, China's increased presence poses no economic or strategic threat. It may, however, have the healthy side effect of spurring Washington to stop taking the region for granted and to begin paying more heed to its lagging development, dangerously uneven income distributions and deep misgivings about growing U.S. unilateralism in international affairs.
.
Hu's travels took him to Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Cuba. China is now Brazil's second-largest trading partner, buying large amounts of iron ore, bauxite and soybeans. Last month it displaced the United States to become the leading purchaser of Chilean copper.
.
In Argentina, Hu unveiled nearly $20 billion in new Chinese investments, much of it in railways and energy exploration. In Cuba, China's main interest is nickel. A similar trade dynamic is already well under way in Australia and Southeast Asia, where Hu made the Asia-Pacific summit meeting last year in Thailand the centerpiece of a regional economic and diplomatic sales tour.
.
Historically, Latin America has suffered from the notorious volatility of international commodity markets. The promise of steadily increasing demand from the robust Chinese economy is clearly welcome. So is the prospect that Washington may become more attentive to Latin concerns as it competes to maintain its traditional diplomatic influence in the region.
.
iht.com |
