China's plan to invest in Latin America moves forward
China is displacing the United States and Europe. It also has important loans in public works, hydrocarbons, and mining, which guarantee silver, zinc, and lithium reservoirs.
The real battlefield between nations is in the economy, and in this area, China is ahead at a steady pace thanks to its policy of non-intervention in internal affairs and good diplomacy, said Daniel Agramont Lechín, Associate Fellow, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt.
Before students and professors of the Faculty of Economics of the UNAM, the specialist detailed in the series of conferences "China-Mexico: Opportunities and challenges of the People's Republic of China for Mexico", that the sale of armament that has long worried capitalist nations, is far from being a reality.
"Chinese investments are the real battleground now, not whether missiles or fighter jets will be sent, the basic issue does not go that way.
What would be the main security threat to the United States or Europe, investments and loans from China, which with its strategy of diplomacy, very strong and skillful in winning friends, is displacing them," explained Agramont Lechín.
In giving the talk "Rethinking military and security cooperation. The case of Latin America-China", the project coordinator at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Bolivia said:
While it is true that China's arms sales to Venezuela and Bolivia have been growing, in reality, this has not generated an international conflict, because they are not the latest technology or put anything at risk.
What Kim Jong-un (North Korea's president) is doing keeps his neighbors awake at night, because it is known how many kilometers his missiles can reach and how far they would go, he warned.
However, China sells mainly transports, radars, and surveillance equipment, including helicopters, but its strong point is what is called South-South cooperation, which marks a policy of non-intervention in internal affairs, with a win-win economic model, said the expert.
The strategy, commented the economist, is opposed to the type of cooperation offered by other nations, including South Korea, which conditions their support to move along the path of development to strategies that worked for them, or with the neoliberalism imposed in America and Africa, as well as pressuring them to apply it.
Currently, China has important loans and investments in Latin America, especially in public works, hydrocarbons, and mining, which guarantees silver, zinc, and lithium reserves, and this will be the great competition in the region, emphasized Agramont Lechín.
The secret behind the Chinese miracle, if we had to name something, is manufacturing and industry, which marked a radical change since 1979 -when there was an inefficient industry sustained by the Mao model- as well as the vision of opening up to foreign capital, the researcher described.
He recalled that although in Asian nations factories absorb an important part of the population, there are also a considerable number of complaints of terrible working conditions so this "model" of work would not be viable to implement in other nations that have gained labor rights.
