China Challenges US Dominance in Latin America

China challenges US dominance

CHINA CHALLENGES US DOMINANCE. China is not only taking over the US’ former role as international peacemaker. Witness China brokering the new Iran-Saudi peace deal, and moving to do the same with Russia-Ukraine. It is also wielding new and extensive influence over Latin America. Since 2013, President Xi has visited Latin America more often than Presidents Obama, Trump & Biden combined.

Already China is providing fentanyl ingredients for Mexican cartels to smuggle into the US. That killed 108,000 US citizens in 2021 alone. But Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia are letting China gain military foothold in Latin America.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is negotiating to open a Chinese fighter jet factory in Argentina. Already Argentina has a Chinese Deep Space Station the size of 400 football fields. Why so much space for just studying space? Argentinians don’t know because the Chinese won’t let them inside.

Former NSC senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, Juan Cruz, suspects spy activity there. He believes the station exists “to monitor our space activity and otherwise be a collector of intelligence.” Furthermore, one of the balloons that China floated last month spent days over Central America. What intelligence did that operation gather? We don’t know.

But we do know that China is trying to overtake US influence in trade, security and tech in the region. China now has not only diplomatic relations, but a “physical presence” in 25 of 31 Latin nations. And out of all China’s global lending, 31% goes to Latin America.

From presence to influence to control

In the early 2000s when US priorities shifted to the war on terrorism, China boosted investments here. From 2000 to 2020 its trade with Latin America increased from $12 to $315 billion. But China aims not much to make money, which is difficult in many corrupt countries there. Instead, China seeks more presence, influence, and eventually control.

“The Chinese are brilliant,” Cruz said. “They buy agreements that don’t make money, but it gets…influence that you can’t tabulate.” For instance, building infrastructure in a country allows China to control that infrastructure. “It makes these countries more beholden to the Chinese,” Cruz added.

While the Biden administration seems to be sleeping at the wheel, China is racing ahead on many fronts. Will the US wake up before it’s too late? Or will the communist Chinese become the new global superpower?

Photo from Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons