China implements soft power in Latin America

Photo: Alicia Barcena Ibarra, ex Executive Secretary – ECLAC. By: World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland, 2012. Fuente: CC – Wikimedia Commons.

At the closing of the 6th China-Latin America and the Caribbean Think Tank Forum, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for the Americas and the Caribbean, said back in 2021, that cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) provides an opportunity to reduce global asymmetries. This opportunity supports a transformative economic recovery that promotes sustainable development in line with the 2030 Agenda.

Meanwhile, according to Evan Ellis, a political scientist specializing in Latin American studies with a focus on the region’s relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and other actors outside the Western Hemisphere, states in an article published in Diálogo Américas that the PRC’s global engagement will have its own benefits. Evan Ellis emphasizes that the PRC will have a predatory economic advance that it will put into effect through a mercantilist strategy.  

Over the past two decades, the PRC has rapidly increased its influence and presence in LAC. By lending money, and investing heavily, the PRC has increased its trade with the region from $12 billion in 2000 to $278 billion in 2017 as published by Evan Ellis at the International Institute for Studies in Global Security (INISEG). Meanwhile, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank have also been overtaken by the Asian country’s banking policies.

Top Headline:

Diálogo Américas – Professor Evan Ellis: El uso del poder blando de China para apoyar su compromiso estratégico en América Latina.

Find out more:

Instituto Internacional de Estudios en Seguridad Globa INISEG: Compromiso chino en América Latina y competencia estratégica con EE.UU.

ECLAC: La cooperación entre China y América Latina y el Caribe ofrece una oportunidad para reducir las asimetrías globales y apoyar una recuperación económica transformadora.

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