China's Move Into Latin America

China plays a patient game. While the Bush Administration burns bridges and bullies it's allies repeatedly shooting himself in the foot, China walks behind and calmly charms those feeling abused by America. What is the Chinese intent? How does this play into their long range geopolitical objectives? Is China a real threat to America?
That question is answered in the first bullet point of this excerpt from an article from PINR.

China's activities in Latin America are part and parcel of its long-term grand strategy. The key elements of Beijing's grand strategy can be identified as follows:

• Focus on "comprehensive national power" essential to achieving the status of a "global great power that is second to none" by 2049;


• Seek energy security and gain access to natural resources, raw materials and overseas markets to sustain China's economic expansion;


• Pursue the "three Ms": military build-up (including military presence along the vital sea lanes of communication and maritime chokepoints), multilateralism, and multipolarity so as to counter the containment of China's regional and global aspirations by the United States and its friends and allies;


• Build a network of Beijing's friends and allies through China's "soft power" and diplomatic charm offensive, trade and economic dependencies via closer economic integration (free trade agreements), and mutual security pacts, intelligence cooperation and arms sales.

First and foremost is the Chinese strategic objective of limiting U.S. dominance worldwide. The world's rising superpower, China, has long viewed the world's reigning superpower, the United States, as its major global strategic rival that needs to be contained and balanced. Notwithstanding Beijing's rhetoric of "peace and development," China's strategic posture is based on the realist paradigm of "comprehensive national power" with which it seeks to defend its interests and intimidate, aggrandize, and support the enemies of its enemies. Faced with a dramatic expansion of U.S. military power ("hard power") all around China's periphery after the September 11 attacks, Beijing responded by unveiling its "soft power" strategy in the form of a diplomatic "charm offensive," the notion of "China's peaceful rise," and laid greater emphasis on multilateralism and economic integration.


[...]Beijing's growing role in Latin America has also coincided with elections that have brought populists and leftists to power in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia. In particular, Brazil, Cuba, and Venezuela have made no secret of their game plan to play "the China card" to offset U.S. influence and trade dominance. In most country cases, when the U.S. withdraws or is negligent militarily, politically or economically, the Chinese move in.


[...]Beijing's customary denials notwithstanding, "the successful Chinese model" of "development-minus-democracy" or "development before democracy" is being sold to the developing world as an alternative model for ending poverty, and it resonates well across the world. The pitch is certainly winning an audience in Africa and Latin America. This "contest of ideas" further opens the door for Beijing to position itself to play the role of balancer and neutralizer right in Washington's backyard.

[...]China's increasing influence in the region is an emerging dynamic that can't be ignored. China needs to protect its access to food, energy, raw materials, and export markets. This has forced a change in its military strategy, to promote a power-projection military, capable of securing lanes and protecting its growing economic interests abroad.

Beijing is training increasing numbers of Latin American military personnel, taking advantage of a void created by a 2002 U.S. law barring military training and aid to a dozen Latin countries -- Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela -- that refuse to exempt U.S. citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. These countries had, in the past, received U.S. training and aid.


[...]China also has had exchanges of senior defense officials with Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile and provided military aid and training to Jamaica and Venezuela. In addition to its growing commercial prowess in Caribbean ports such as the Bahamas, Beijing has been operating two intelligence stations out of Cuba since 1999. Media reports speak of cooperation among the Chinese, Cuban and Venezuelan intelligence agencies. In August 2005, Venezuela decided to buy the Chinese JYL-1 mobile air defense radar and surveillance system. In his testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Roger Pardo-Maurer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs, said that the United States needs "to be alert to rapidly advancing Chinese capabilities, particularly in the fields of intelligence, communications and cyber-warfare, and their possible application in the region. We would encourage other nations in the hemisphere to take a close look at how such activities could possibly be used against them or the United States."


[...]Beijing's primary interest in infrastructure projects that would improve access to, and transportation of, resources, raw materials and commodities (as in Myanmar, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Central Asia) to fuel China's economic expansion causes unease in the region. Many Latin American economists and analysts warn against falling into the trap of being a supplier of commodities for China's value-added manufacturing enterprises, and thus assume the posture of a Chinese colony or economic dependency like Myanmar.


[...]Furthermore, with so much foreign investment going to China, Latin America is finding it difficult to obtain the capital it needs to finance its own growth. Finally, despite the proliferation in the number of Chinese language classes, the cultural barriers that separate China and Latin America remain formidable. Geography, history, culture and values inextricably tie Latin America's present and future to the United States.


In short, Beijing's relations with Latin America are neither too cozy nor frictionless. Different countries and sectors in Latin America benefit differentially from economic ties with China. While labor-intensive manufacturers (in Brazil, Mexico and Central America) are losers, energy and resource extractors and high-tech goods suppliers (in Venezuela, Uruguay, Peru, Argentina and Chile) are winners. Nonetheless, the point is that for Latin America and the Caribbean countries, China is no longer a distant Asian power, but a mighty rival, indispensable partner, potential investor, as well as a great power friend and counterweight to the United States, and, above all, a global power that needs to be handled with care.


[...]Beijing calculates that one of the consequences of the burgeoning Sino-Latin American trade and resource dependency will be a widening of the gap between U.S. and Latin American interests. As U.S. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Pardo-Maurer points out: "China has its own set of political, economic and military interests, requiring us to carefully distinguish between legitimate commercial initiatives and the possibility of political or diplomatic efforts to weaken the democratic alliances we have forged."


While Beijing's forays do not indicate a seismic change in the balance of power within Latin America, the very presence of China does make U.S. diplomacy difficult. Increasingly, "the China option" affords Latin American countries greater room for maneuver and an additional source of leverage vis-à-vis Washington. While the Chinese may not want to be drawn into Venezuela, Brazil or Cuba's problems with the United States, that does not mean that these countries will not play "the China card" in their relations with the United States.


[...]China's increasing imprint on the economic, political and strategic character of its region makes it important for Washington to seek a mutually beneficial accommodation with its new neighbor. Washington welcomes China's trade and economic ties with Latin America, seeing it as a means to reduce pressure on the United States to underwrite regional economic development. A test of whether China is a stakeholder or just a seeker of the continent's natural resources and markets would be its commitment to developing some rules and common objectives whereby Latin America gains as much from its economic engagement as China without undermining transparency, growth, stability and democracy in the region. To this end, Beijing would need to invest not just in oilfields and mines, but in other sectors that would contribute to Latin American growth and development.


China's influence in Latin America cannot supersede that of the United States. U.S. trade and investment in Latin America not only dwarfs that of China, but its economic engagement is also qualitatively different from that of China -- as a provider of high-tech and knowledge-based goods and services. The enormous power asymmetry between China and the United States, and Beijing's domestic development priorities, ensure that the Chinese leadership will continue to steer clear of direct confrontation with Washington. MORE

Clearly the Chinese are content to watch America destroy itself on debt, domestic labor dissent, and declining infrastructure. However, come 20 years from now, China will be positioned to challenge the US in every way. They expect the US to decline by some means within 40 years.