[News] Washington Watches as China and Latin America Deepen Their Ties
Anti-Imperialist News
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Sat Apr 9 12:47:11 EDT 2022
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*Washington Watches as China and Latin America Deepen Their Ties*
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*By Marco Fernandes*
Less than a week after the start of Russia’s military intervention, Juan
Sebastian Gonzalez, senior director of Western Hemisphere affairs at the
U.S. National Security Council, in an interview with Voice of America (a
State Department asset), stated
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/aine-venezuela-nicaragua-cuba-/nmtz5w/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
that “the sanctions against Russia are so robust that they will have an
impact on those governments that have economic affiliations with Russia,
and that is by design. So, Venezuela will start feeling the pressure;
Nicaragua will start feeling the pressure; as will Cuba.” A recent
article in Foreign Affairs magazine, which by way of the Council on
Foreign Relations serves unofficially as a kind of discussion forum of
the U.S. State Department, titled “The Eurasian Nightmare,” defended
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-2022-02-25-eurasian-nightmare/nmtz5z/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
the thesis that Washington has no choice but to fight Russia and China
at the same time. However, Gonzalez hints that the Biden
administration’s strategy not only contemplates attacking the main front
in the east (Moscow and Beijing), but also opens a front in the
south—secondary, but important—against three Latin American countries
that have challenged Washington the most in recent years (Venezuela,
Nicaragua, and Cuba). The southern front, however, may be broader than
what the Colombia-born
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/r-pa-ei-biog-bureau-254661-htm/nmtz63/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
Juan Gonzalez makes clear.
On March 24, the commander of the U.S. Armed Forces Southern Command,
General Laura Richardson, testified
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before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. She said that although
Russia is the “more immediate threat” in Latin America and the
Caribbean, China would pose a diplomatic, technological, informational,
and military challenge to the United States. Richardson had given
similar testimony
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/Posture-Statement-to-Congress-/nmtz69/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
in the House of Representatives about two weeks earlier, where she also
stated that without “U.S. leadership,” Chinese influence in the region
could “soon resemble the self-serving predatory influence it now holds
in Africa.” She refers to the advance of the Belt and Road Initiative
across the African continent since 2013, responsible for unprecedented
tens of billions of dollars in Chinese investment
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/revolution-chinese-investment-/nmtz6d/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
in basic infrastructure (energy, telecommunications, ports, railroads,
highways, etc.) in exchange for the natural resources China needs to
feed its industry, which is responsible for 28.7 percent
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/f-global-manufacturing-output-/nmtz6h/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
of all manufacturing produced in the world and consumed globally.
General Richardson’s statements are based on two principles. First, that
the United States views Latin America and the Caribbean as its
“backyard,” expressed in the Monroe Doctrine since 1823 and put into
practice in countless military invasions, coups, and, more recently,
hybrid wars against peoples and governments not aligned with Washington.
Biden recently said
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that “Latin America is not our backyard,” but rather that it is
“America’s front yard.” Latin Americans do not want to be anyone’s yard,
whether front or back. Second, that the United States believes that the
foreign policy of the region’s governments should be defined by Washington.
*China in Latin America*
In 2000, the U.S. Congress set up the U.S.-China Economic and Security
Review Commission
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/rt-2021-annual-report-congress/nmtz6p/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>,
which offers Congress its assessment of China on U.S. national security.
In November 2021, the commission’s report had an important chapter on
the relations between China and the governments of Latin America and the
Caribbean
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-America-and-the-Caribbean-pdf/nmtz6s/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>.
The report worried about China’s support for what it termed “populist”
governments from Argentina to Venezuela. It remarked on the increase in
the region’s trade with China: from $18.9 billion (2002) to $295.6
billion (2020), in addition to its growing importance as a source of
loans, financing ($137 billion from 2005 to 2020) and direct investments
($58 billion between 2016 and 2020). Due to this investment, China was
able to assist the region in lessening the impact of the 2008 financial
crisis; this investment created jobs (1.8 million between 1995 and 2016)
and decreased poverty (falling from 12 percent in 2002 to 4 percent in
2018). Chinese vaccines rushed in during the pandemic, and Latin
American commodity exports to China dampened the burden of the COVID
recession.
The U.S.-China Commission worried
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about the increased connections between China and the region in
telecommunications and transportation networks. Huawei’s leadership
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in 5G in the region as well as Sino-South American partnerships in the
development of satellites
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/AG-Outer-Space-Cooperation-pdf/nmtz6z/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
(21 launched
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in joint ventures, most of which were with Argentina) are offered as
examples. The commission also expressed alarm that China’s control or
influence over ports in the region, particularly in the Caribbean, since
these could—in the future—be used for military purposes (although there
is no indication of any such military use by China or by the Latin
American and Caribbean states).
*Washington’s Cold War*
Washington’s hard-right elements reacted to this report with speed. In
February 2022, Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/fluence-latin-america-82730508/nmtz73/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>,
both Cuban-Americans, introduced the Western Hemisphere Security
Strategy Act of 2022 in Congress. This bill
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-senate-bill-3589-text-r-2-s-1/nmtz76/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>,
drawing from the commission’s recommendations, proposes that the United
States government directly challenge China’s role in the region. It
characterizes the existence of China and Russia in the region as a
“harmful and malign influence.” The bill is vague and short on details.
Dr. Evan Ellis
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/people-evan-ellis/nmtz79/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>,
a professor at the U.S. Army War College whose testimony was part of the
commission’s report, wrote a report in January 2022 for the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. The report—“Preparing for
Deterioration of the Latin America and Caribbean Strategic Environment”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1E0tejChAtolr6Vg9YyVkVTJqpeyao/nmtz7d/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>—points
to the revival “of a particular model of leftist authoritarian populism”
in Latin America and the Caribbean. The new governments, he writes, have
developed links with China to help them over the COVID recession
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/tin-america-and-the-caribbean-/nmtz7h/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>.
The United States, Ellis argues, cannot mobilize sufficient resources
for investment in the region because the U.S. Congress is divided and
because the private sector is unwilling to take on this mission. He
remains skeptical of U.S. policy in the region, particularly as Chinese
state-owned companies have been effectively investing in sectors such as
construction, mining, energy, and finance.
Ellis recommends four immediate actions, many of them part of what is
known as “hybrid war.” First, he says that Washington should promote a
media narrative that denounces the leftist governments and their
relations with China. Second, the United States should support protest
movements against these governments. Third, the United States must
deepen its alliances with regional elites. Fourth, the United States
must apply sanctions to these left-leaning governments.
Two elections in the coming months could make things more difficult for
the United States. In Colombia (May), the main ally of the United States
in the region, leftist candidate Gustavo Petro could push the right wing
out of power. In Brazil (October), Lula leads the polls against
President Jair Bolsonaro.
Ellis suspects
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1E0tejChAtolr6Vg9YyVkVTJqpeyao/nmtz7d/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
that the arrest and imprisonment of Lula had “deepened the radicalism of
his leftist populist orientation.” In May 2021, Lula told the Chinese
website Guancha
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/watch-v-tAnw1rv6nsI/nmtz7l/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>:
“It’s not possible that every time a Latin American country starts to
grow, there is a coup. And in this coup, there is always someone from
the U.S., there is always the U.S. ambassador. It is not possible.”
Lula is not a radical, but if he is re-elected president of Brazil, he
will bring a realistic attitude toward his country’s development. He has
stressed the importance of rebuilding the Latin American and Caribbean
regional bloc (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or
CELAC) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), both
of which have been weakened in recent years. Chinese investment and
trade are already a key part of Brazil’s plans for its future, but Lula
also knows that this partnership must evolve, and Brazil needs to be
more than an exporter of commodities to China.
Will the United States be able to roll back the influence of China and
Russia on the region? Even Ellis does not feel confident about such an
outcome. Along with Senators Rubio and Menendez, Ellis would prefer to
destabilize the region than allow it to become a protagonist in a
possible new world order.
/*Marco Fernandes* is a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for
Social Research
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-04-09/nmtz7p/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>.
He is a member of the No Cold War
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-04-09/nmtz7s/1031491100?h=ak8UJ5qYVS5t8qLlCiHC1sQBxeukHQKTdzcVUYtzFeE>
collective. He lives in Shanghai./
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