Today’s edition covers September 29 to October 13.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• The PRC officially joined the Andean Community (which is made up of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru) as an observer state. China applied last July, and the new status allows China’s representatives to observe and speak in certain meetings, though Beijing will not be allowed a vote. The group’s Secretary-General said the development will enhance relations through the “development of political dialogue and the intensification of cooperation.”

  • Right now, there are six other observer states: Spain, Morocco, Turkey, Greece, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Notably, the United States is not an observer.

  • The Andean Community is considerably less prominent than other regional groupings like Mercosur or trade agreements like USMCA, but it does provide some tangible benefits for its members through facilitated border crossings and some free trade. Moreover, the community includes some of China’s closest economic partners (Peru, to a lesser extent Ecuador) and political allies (Bolivia under the MAS). As the region faces increased political turmoil, observer membership gives China another way to maintain its close relationships with these countries.

• U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent claimed that Argentine President Milei is “committed to getting China out.” The comments came after the U.S. government offered Argentina a $20 billion swap line to prop up its economy, which it reportedly conditioned on the country rolling back its $18 billion swap line with the PRC.

  • Argentina’s central bank has an active $18 billion swap line with China’s central bank, and in recent years, the press has suggested that the PRC had leveraged the swap for political goals. Still, even if the U.S. currency swap and peso purchasing help wean Argentina away from Chinese financing, the country’s reliance on trade with the PRC (as well as PRC infrastructure and commercial investment) means that there really isn’t a way to get China “out” of Argentina.

• The Brazilian development bank BNDES and the China Ex-Im Bank created a new $1 billion fund to invest in diverse sectors, including infrastructure, bioeconomy, mining, and agriculture, in the South American country. A few days later, President Lula attended the opening of a $1 billion BYD EV manufacturing plant in Bahia. The founder and president of BYD, Wang Chuanfu, also traveled to Brazil for the event. The plant will reportedly produce 150,000 cars per year in its first year. (Xinhua)

  • Brazil and China have close financial and investment ties dating back more than two decades, but the size and scope of these developments make them significant. Still, Lula’s participation in the BYD plant inauguration is a bit curious, considering that this Bahia plant seems to be the same one where a Brazilian prosecutor accused a BYD contractor of having used “slave-like” labor conditions.

• The Chinese-built Demerara River Bridge officially opened on October 5 in Guyana. The $260 million bridge was built by China Railway Construction Corporation. During the inauguration ceremony, the Chinese Ambassador said it “symbolizes the commitment of Guyana and China to the Belt and Road Initiative.”

  • Guyana has benefited from heavy Chinese (and Western) investment in the oil sector, but this project shows that the PRC's presence in the Caribbean country is multifaceted. Additionally, in contrast to Secretary of State Rubio’s remarks from earlier this year criticizing what he (incorrectly) thought was a Chinese-built road, this is a genuinely important and eye-catching project that U.S. firms and state financing have not been able to compete with in the region.

• Mexican President Sheinbaum said that her government would hold off imposing tariffs of up to 50% on nearly 1,500 products on non-FTA partners (namely China) until after Mexico holds talks with those countries.

  • In late September, Sheinbaum proposed raising tariffs on non-FTA trade partners. In response, China’s Commerce Ministry (MOFCOM) launched an investigation into whether Mexico’s tariffs were an unfair trade and investment barrier, prompting Sheinbaum to backtrack and propose a high-level working group to resolve trade issues.

  • All this takes place in the shadow of the 2026 USMCA (formerly NAFTA) trade agreement review. The U.S. government has been critical of Chinese investment and trade with Mexico, especially in sensitive sectors like autos, so this tariff move might initially have been a way to smooth over Washington’s concerns.

Core Brief

Are South America’s illegal and unreported Chinese fishing woes over?

These days, I often feel like the bearer of bad news when it comes to China-LAC updates. But halfway through September, Latin America got some (tentatively) positive news when the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies officially came into effect.

Now, you’d be forgiven for not knowing about the first phase of the WTO fisheries agreement (called Fish I), or even for not realizing that the WTO still functioned at all, given the United States’ multi-year campaign to effectively disable the international body. But this agreement, which is the result of multiple decades of hard-fought negotiating rounds, is both the most significant global trade agreement in years and an agreement that will bind fishermen to more sustainable fishing practices, especially in regions like South America’s coasts.

China’s fishing presence

China is home to the world’s largest fishing fleet, with more than 17,000 vessels operating globally, some of which operate illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing operations. Partly due to the Chinese fishing fleet’s massive size, and partly due to what have historically been weaker environmental regulations from Chinese businesses writ large, Chinese vessels have often been flagged as particularly common practitioners of IUU fishing.

These types of environmental abuses have hit Latin America, particularly the South American countries of Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, especially hard. Chinese IUU fishing off South America generated hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for local fishermen, while also forcing South American militaries to expend resources to track these vessels and to make sure they don’t intrude on exclusive economic zones (EEZs).

The glimmer of a solution

The new WTO agreement that China acceded to largely ends subsidies for IUU fishing, which is certainly a start for addressing this problem. Affected South American countries like Ecuador have engaged in bilateral discussions with their Chinese counterparts. Yet because oceans and fisheries management are global issues, resolving Chinese IUU fishing near South America requires multilateral solutions like this agreement.

That said, further work remains. Future agreements will be required to end shipbuilding subsidies that contribute to overcapacity. Moreover, the current agreement has a number of deficiencies, including weak penalties and a lack of transparency enforcement mechanisms. Just this week, InfoDefensa reported that the Chilean Navy is monitoring a Chinese fishing fleet near the Southern Cone country’s shores.

But this is all the more reason for both LAC countries and the United States to continue engaging in these negotiations to resolve this longstanding irritant in Chinese–South American relations.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Miao Deyu attended a China-CELAC foreign ministers dialogue, likely in New York, on September 25 with counterparts from 13 countries, notably including Haiti. Miao contrasted PRC-LAC cooperation with what he characterized as U.S. “unilateralism, protectionism, hegemony and bullying.” He also re-emphasized Xi’s five proposed cooperation programs for the region. (FMPRC)

• The President of Dominica, Sylvanie Burton, traveled to Beijing for the Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women. She met President Xi during the trip, where they discussed issues like climate change response and infrastructure. (Xinhua) (People’s Daily)

• Colombian President Petro fired all of the country’s Beijing-based diplomats after accusing them of sabotaging relations by canceling meetings and altering his schedule without permission. The news came on the same day that the Colombian foreign minister said that Colombia adhered to Beijing’s “One China Principle.” (CGTN)

• The Mexican Chamber of Deputies installed a new China-Mexico Friendship Group with 54 members. Deputy Raymundo Vázquez, a member of the ruling Morena Party, will lead the group.

• China’s embassy in Panama accused the United States of “spreading lies” in the country after the U.S. ambassador in the country called the Chinese presence near the Panama Canal “malign.”

• The Chinese ambassador to Antigua and Barbuda, Zhang Yanling, is departing her post. In a farewell meeting, the Antiguans’ Foreign Minister praised her for improving relations in infrastructure, health, and education.

• Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi discussed UN reform with former Chilean president Michele Bachelet. Bachelet is expected to be nominated by Chile for the UN Secretary General role. (Xinhua)

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• Chinese and Brazilian foreign affairs officials met in São Paolo for the second bilateral forum on financial cooperation, with talks specifically focusing on facilitating transactions in local currencies.

• The latest round of China Southern Power Grid Company is reportedly in talks to buy a majority stake worth roughly $4 billion in Transelec, a Chilean transmission firm. China Southern already owns 28% of the firm.

• Chinese mining company Gangfeng Lithium announced a new $2 billion investment in its Pozuelos-Pastos Grandes (PPG) project in Salta, Argentina. Meanwhile, Argentine oil company YPF is negotiating with Chinese construction company Wison New Energies to acquire two floating liquefaction units (FLNG).

Trade and technology

• The China-Costa Rica Free Trade Committee met virtually on September 18^th for its eighth meeting. The two sides discussed issues like “bilateral trade, rules of origin, and investment cooperation” to better implement their FTA.

• The Brazilian Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Luciana Santos, gave opening remarks at a Seminar on Innovation, Science, and Technology at the Chinese embassy. The discussions specifically touched on AI, digital transformation, and the energy transition. (TeleSur)

• Mirroring how Chinese producers are buying Brazilian soy to replace U.S.-grown beans, Chinese state-owned firm COFCO purchased more than half a million metric tons of canola from Australia in a bid to diversify away from Canadian canola due to geopolitical tensions.

• China donated 25 1.8MW generators to Cuba to support the country’s electrical grid, eight of which will reinforce the capacity of the Guanábana power plant in Matanzas.

• Montevideo and Beijing agreed to allow Uruguayan bovine gallstone processors to export Argentine, Brazilian, and Uruguayan bovine gallstones to the PRC.

Taiwan

• Taiwan’s foreign affairs ministry denied that there were any irregularities in its aid donations to Paraguay. Its statement came after a Paraguayan radio station released audio that allegedly showed corrupt distributions to Senators.

• A delegation of 15 Taiwanese businesses traveled to Mexico to explore electric vehicle opportunities. The delegation will also visit Guatemala, Brazil, and Paraguay.

• Taiwan donated 1,350 tons of rice to a Haitian Economic and Social Assistance Fund, which will “support families living in extremely precarious conditions throughout the country.”

• The Ministry of Agriculture of St. Vincent and the Grenadines received a range of agricultural equipment, including tractors and grading machines, from Taiwan.

Society and culture

• China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs donated $94 million to Trinidad and Tobago in non-refundable grants. The funds will be used for “mutually agreed projects under an agreement on economic and technical co-operation.”

• The mayor of the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil announced it will build a $3 million Chinatown in the city center as part of an effort to boost the local economy and to reconnect the city with its more than 50,000 Chinese-descendant residents.

• A small cultural delegation from the Fujianese city of Quanzhou visited Panama City to perform traditional opera styles and to greet locals in traditional clothing. (Xinhua)

Analysis and Opinion

• A new report from CSIS claims to provide a new dataset of Chinese (and Russian) military diplomacy in LAC, finding that Brazil and Argentina have had the most military exchanges between 2022 and 2024.

• In a study for Brookings, Joshua Meltzer finds that there is some trade circumvention by Chinese producers through Canada and Mexico, although some of the evidence disappears once adjusted for price increases.

• In The Diplomat, Evan Ellis explored Peru’s “active neutrality” in relations with Washington and Beijing, arguing that “over the long run, Peru’s ability to successfully balance between the United States and China will depend on putting its own true interests first.” Meanwhile, Victoria Jones suggested that Chinese cultural diplomacy laid the groundwork for Chinese megaprojects in Peru for The Diplomat.

• Alonso Illueca wrote about how China’s influence shapes elections in LAC countries like Bolivia, Honduras, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Chile for the China-Global South Project. He also wrote about Nicaragua’s attempts to resuscitate a canal project with China’s help.

• Writing for the Guardian, Nesrine Malik argues that China is “eyeing superpower status” in Africa and the Caribbean, suggesting that “China is transacting with poorer countries in an asymmetrical relationship of power.”

That’s it for now, thank you! And a big thank you to the team at CPSI, especially Rasheed and Shem. I am so grateful for their support in publishing this newsletter for the past few years.

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

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Today’s edition covers September 1 to September 15

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The Top 5 Stories:

• As part of the celebrations marking the 80^th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel met with President Xi and Secretary of the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Li Xi. In the latter meeting, the two sides reportedly “drew a new blueprint for bilateral relations.” At the end of the visit, Diaz-Canel attended a Cuba-China Biotechnology Working Group meeting and announced that 30 cooperation agreements had been signed over the course of the trip. Later, the Cuban trade minister commented that the two sides are renegotiating the island’s government, financial, and business debts in China, as well as Cuba’s accession into China’s Interbank Cross-Border Payment System.

  • Also at the ceremony were the Venezuelans and the Brazilians. The president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, represented the Bolivarian Republic, while Celso Amorim, a special advisor to President Lula, attended on behalf of Brazil. Amorim later met with Wang Yi and suggested that their two countries should explore defense cooperation opportunities. (FMPRC)

• A delegation led by 20 Nicaraguan municipal secretaries from the ruling FSLN party traveled to China to visit the school of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party and meet with the CCP’s International Department. At the same time, the co-director of the National Police, Francisco Díaz, attended a PRC security forum and met with the Chinese Minister of Public Security.

  • Since establishing formal diplomatic relations in 2021, the Ortega regime has swiftly sought to leverage its relationship with Beijing to support its authoritarian political project. The CCP engages with both authoritarian and democratic regimes on security and political issues; the engagement with Nicaragua’s ruling party has been particularly intense.

• Mexican officials announced they would raise tariffs on over 1,400 products from non-FTA partners, a new set of duties that would fall largely on PRC exports. Notably, these new tariffs include a 50% tax on Chinese autos. China’s commerce ministry cautioned against the trade action, and Mexican and Chinese officials are expected to begin talks over the trade measures in the coming weeks.

  • This is not the first time that Mexico raised tariffs on its non-FTA trading partners; back in 2023, then-President Lopez Obrador imposed an average 25% tariff on more than 500 goods. That said, next year’s USMCA review will likely create new pressures on Mexico to reduce Chinese investment, trade, and transshipment in the North American country, so this effort may be an attempt to preempt those concerns.

• A Paraguayan radio station released leaked audio that purported to show that Paraguayan senators were receiving kickbacks from Taiwanese economic development funds that were supposed to be spent on new elevators. The president of Paraguay’s congress denied the rumors, arguing that Taiwan was directly paying the contractors and that there was no opportunity for graft.

  • Most of Taiwan’s foreign assistance to its diplomatic allies goes to real projects that help locals with issues like food security, education, and healthcare. That said, corruption and payoffs are not unheard of when it comes to Taiwan’s foreign policy. For example, former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo received $2.5 million in bribes to maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei. Relatedly, the Economist previously reported that Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party often treats Taiwanese foreign assistance as a “stash of ‘petty cash.’” While this might be a big misunderstanding, it is also not impossible that some Taiwanese money was not being used for its intended aid purposes.

• The Chinese General Administration of Customs (GACC) approved Brazilian sorghum imports, clearing the way for a new alternative U.S. sorghum. The first shipments are expected to ship as early as this year. The approvals follow through on a commitment President Xi made during his visit to Brasilia in 2024.

  • China and the United States used to be highly interdependent on sorghum exports: back in 2023, 53% of Chinese sorghum imports were from the United States, while 85% of U.S. sorghum (totaling $999 million) went to China. Experts expect that Brazil has strong potential for long-term sorghum cultivation, which could heavily displace U.S. sorghum trade in the future.

Core Brief

The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) and Latin America

The SCO summit of Asian leaders and a plethora of goose-stepping young Chinese men and women grabbed the Chinese headlines from early September. But lying in the background, China’s foreign ministry (MOFA) announced a new major policy proposal that anyone following Chinese foreign policy will soon have to memorize: the Global Governance Initiative (GGI).

The GGI is premised on maintaining and enhancing the UN-led world order. Explicitly criticizing (U.S.) unilateral sanctions and slow progress on multilateral issues, the GGI is made up of five core (but admittedly bland) concepts: sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, people-centered approach, and “real results.” Priority areas for multilateral engagement are “international financial architecture [reform], AI, cyberspace, climate change, trade, and outer space,” as well as boosting “the representation of the Global South” in multilateral organizations.

Though the GGI’s older siblings, namely the GDI, GSI, and GCI, have not amounted to much in the way of tangible deliverables, at least three traditional China-friendly regimes quickly signed on to MOFA’s new plan: Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. These three are among the most China-aligned governments, so this provides little indication of how far the GGI’s adoption will actually go in the region.

That said, three immediate implications from the initiative stand out to me:

• Boosting representation in international institutions can take many forms, but one of the most obvious would be expanding the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) permanent members. Brazil has previously sought a permanent seat at the UN, but any configuration of expanded UNSC membership would likely mean a more active voice for one or many LAC countries in the body.

• China’s foreign ministry previously addressed international financial architecture reform in this spring’s China-CELAC forum declaration, but the GGI further cements the importance of addressing the issue in future Chinese foreign policy. Considering that nearly every Latin American and Caribbean country has relied on the World Bank and IMF, any reform of the international financial architecture would immediately affect the region’s interests.

• Supporting “regional and subregional multilateral institutions” suggests that China will continue, if not enhance, its relationship and support for regional multilateral bodies like CELAC, CARICOM, and even the OAS.

None of the GDI’s complaints or proposals are all that new to Chinese foreign policy, but it does succinctly lay out China’s vision for the multilateral world order. In the coming months and years, China will probably encourage other LAC countries to support the initiative, as well as the reforms themselves.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• At a ceremony attended by various Venezuelan officials and the Chinese ambassador, President Maduro inaugurated a monument to the 80^th anniversary of the Chinese victory against the Japanese in World War II on the outskirts of Caracas.

• Canadian Parliamentary Secretary and top aide to Prime Minister Carney, Kody Blois, met with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, exchanging views on “bilateral relations”. (FMPRC)

• Chinese naval hospital ship Silk Road Ark set sail on September 5 for its maiden overseas deployment, with the ship expecting to stop in Mexico, Jamaica, Barbados, Brazil, Peru, and Chile for a humanitarian medical mission. (PRC MND)

• The U.S. State Department announced a new policy to restrict visas to Central American citizens who “act intentionally on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party” to “support or carry out activities that undermine the rule of law in Central America.”

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• China’s embassy and the Dominican Republic’s foreign ministry signed an economic cooperation agreement for $40 million in non-refundable grants for emergency management and natural disaster response projects and 450 scholarships for DR government officials.

• Mexico agreed to purchase 15 electric trains for the Mexico-Pachuca route from CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive for about $318 million.

• Zijin Mining began operations on its $600 million lithium project in Catamarca, Argentina. The investment will start off producing 20,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), but it expects to eventually ramp up to 50,000 LCE.

• The Chinese and Honduran governments showcased the economic benefits of their cooperation by inaugurating a new agriculture processing plant in Comayagua that had been built with a $3.1 million grant, announcing a new expert mission to evaluate the Patuca II-A Hydroelectric Project, from the Chinese Agency for International Cooperation for Development, and agreeing to a new $3 million sale of tobacco to PRC buyers.

• A new floating oil production facility that will eventually produce 60,000 barrels of oil per day in western Venezuela arrived in the country at the beginning of September. The facility is part of a broader investment by China Concord Resources Corporation.

• A new report by the Brazil-China Business Council found that Chinese investment more than doubled in 2024 compared to the year before. Total investment by Chinese companies totaled more than $4 billion across 39 projects.

Trade and technology

• China’s Ministry of Commerce lengthened its anti-dumping probe into Canadian canola oil by six months, giving negotiators additional time to resolve the trade dispute.

• A business delegation led by Nicaraguan presidential advisor (and son of the Ortegas) Laureano Ortega met with PRC companies and signed an MOU on information systems technology during a visit to China.

• Due to an outbreak of avian flu in Argentina, China’s customs administration banned imports of poultry and related products on September 3.

• A new cargo shipping route between Zhangjiagang Port in east China's Suzhou City to Chancay Port in Peru opened on September 12, further linking the two countries. (Xinhua) The new route was launched as Peru’s finance minister expressed confidence that his government could maintain strong trading relationships with both the United States and the PRC.

• A new Buenos Aires-Shanghai flight route by China Eastern via Auckland will officially launch on December 4. The new air route to Argentina will be among the longest in the world.

Taiwan

• The ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs allocated $174 million to its Latin American and Caribbean operations for the coming year to both support existing relations with its diplomatic partners and to build new, likely unofficial, ties across the region.

• The Taiwanese embassy in St. Vincent and the Grenadines donated a host of medical supplies like wheelchairs and walkers, as well as an ambulance, to the country’s Ministry of Health.

• Taiwan’s Foreign Trade Development Council and the foreign ministry sponsored a business conference in Lima. Twenty-eight Taiwanese manufacturers from the electronics, technology, agriculture, finance, manufacturing, machinery, hardware, and food industries met with Peruvian companies.

• Paraguay’s air force received four Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopters from Taiwan, and the country’s armed forces expect to get additional armored vehicles in the near future.

Society and culture

• The eighth China-Latin America Civilizations Dialogue Forum was held in Wuxi on September 12. The forum brought together more than 150 participants from 20 countries to discuss cultural issues, sustainability, and trade.

• The Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History (IHAH) and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IACASS) signed an agreement on “research, conservation and promotion” of Honduran cultural heritage.

• The University of Chile’s agronomy faculty signed an agreement with Tianjin Nongkenjing to build a demonstration farm in Maipú that could host experimental cultivation areas.

• Chinese oil company CNOOC, which has notable oil investments in Guyana, sponsored 7 Guyanese doctors to attend a three-month training program in Nanjing.

• The Barbados Ministry of Health and Wellness signed an MOU with the Chinese embassy to allow for the arrival of the eighth Chinese Medical Team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

• The PRC embassy in Antigua and Barbuda will donate 1,800 solar street lights to the Caribbean nation, as well as sponsor a new training series on modern irrigation techniques.

Analysis and Opinion

• Howard Shen and Frank Alley argue in World Politics Review that the upcoming elections in Honduras are a referendum on the country’s relationship with China (and possibly a future relationship with Taiwan). Two leading candidates have suggested they would restore ties with Taipei at the expense of Beijing.

• A new article in Foreign Affairs by Hussein Kalout argues that under the Trump Administration, “U.S. policy [in Brazil] is playing into China’s hands.”

• Eric Olander of the China Global South Project spoke with Alonso Illueca on his podcast to discuss small-state diplomacy with Latin American and Caribbean countries like Dominica. Illueca later wrote about how China’s lithium investment bid in Bolivia has gone awry now that two center-right candidates who do not support Chinese investment in the country made it past the first round in the country’s presidential elections.

• Writing in Responsible Statecraft, Jorge Heine argues that the United States has little to offer countries like Ecuador in competition with China.

• A new piece in The Diplomat by Evan Ellis explores Peru’s “active neutrality” between the United States and China, finding that Lima’s “ability to successfully balance between the United States and China will depend on putting its own true interests first.”

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

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Today’s edition covers June 2 to June 15

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The Top 5 Stories:

• It’s been a weird week in China-Panama-U.S. relations, so here’s a quick run-down:

  1. On June 10, the head of the Panama Canal Authority warned that the proposed CK Hutchison-Blackrock port deal could undermine the canal’s neutrality. Consequently, the PRC foreign ministry quickly seized on this in a news conference to implicitly justify its decision to hold up the deal. (Global Times)

  2. At the same time, President José Raúl Mulino denounced his predecessor over the $1.8 billion in cost overruns for the sensitive Chinese-built fourth bridge over the Panama Canal. In turn, he said he would file a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office.

  3. The next day, June 11, the U.S. Embassy in Panama City issued a statement claiming a strategic victory in Panama by helping Panama’s Ministry of Public Security replace seven Huawei-built telecommunications towers at the cost of $8 million in order to “protect the national security of our countries from the threat of the Chinese Communist Party.”

  4. However, shortly thereafter, President Mulino rebuked the Trump Administration’s implicit suggestion that the project was a response to Washington’s competition with Beijing. Additionally, Panamanian officials clarified that the project had been ongoing for nearly 10 years.

  5. Even amidst these U.S.-China tensions playing out in Panama, Bloomberg reported that a key result of the U.S.-China talks in Switzerland was to let a Chinese firm, like State-Owned Enterprise COSCO, join the Western consortium that elected to buy a network of global ports (including two near the Panama Canal) from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison.

  • What to make of all this? Panama remains in a sticky position, and the Mulino Administration seems to be trying its best not to lean too hard into one relationship over the other. On the one hand, the United States is an essential partner, but on the other hand, ignoring China could impede Panama’s economic prospects. And with the Trump Administration taking wishy-washy positions, navigating this tight path will be even harder for Mulino.

• Looking to reaffirm his country’s ties with the ROC, Guatemalan President Arevalo traveled to Taipei to meet with Taiwanese President Lai and to find ways to deepen economic cooperation. The presidents signed a “Letter of Intent for Semiconductor Cooperation,” while the two sides later confirmed an agreement on mutual investment. When Arevalo later traveled to Japan, international media suggested that Tokyo’s embrace of Latin American countries like Paraguay and Guatemala was due to those countries’ relationships with Taipei. Unsurprisingly, however, the visit prompted Beijing to yet again urge Guatemala to break ties with the ROC.

  • When President Arevalo was first elected, there was some initial speculation that his government might seek to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing in a bid to attract Chinese trade and investment. This visit and its modest substantive agreements will likely quell those concerns, at least in the short term.

• Antigua and Barbuda Senior Minister Sir Molwyn Joseph led a delegation of several ministers to China, including Shanghai and Hangzhou, to deepen collaboration in “health, agriculture, fisheries, the blue economy, education, and innovation.” The officials met with Chinese business leaders, academics, and government leaders to discuss issues like modernizing health infrastructure, “joint ventures that would help protect marine ecosystems,” and new training exchanges and cultural partnerships. Relatedly, China’s Ministry of Commerce hosted a 21-day seminar for students from Antigua and Barbuda on “climate change response and sustainable agricultural development.”

  • While A&B’s ties with China are quite consistently friendly, the country’s government has been quick to note that it is not picking one side over another. Just recently, Antigua and Barbuda’s foreign minister stated, “To the extent that we have the United States as our major trading partner... and China our number one development partner, I think we are enjoying the best of both worlds.”

• In an interview with the Financial Times, the Brazilian Vice Minister of Finance said that his country plans to issue “panda bonds”, which are bonds denominated in Renminbi for foreign creditors. As of this writing, it is unclear how much debt will be issued or when Brazil plans to begin selling the bonds.

  • Brasilia has long sought to wean itself off its dollar dependency, and its relationship with Beijing (especially through BRICS) has been central to achieving this goal. From a currency swap with the People’s Bank of China to ditching the dollar in bilateral Sino-Brazilian trade, this “panda bonds” news is just another step in Brazil’s long-term plan to be less dependent on just the U.S. Dollar.

• A judicial delegation led by the Vice President of the Beijing High Court, Ren Xuefeng, traveled to Peru, where they met with leading judges like President of the Judiciary Janet Tello Gilardi and Supreme Judge Ulises Yaya Zumaeta to discuss intellectual property (IP) issues. They later traveled to Argentina, where the two sides discussed the relative structure and function of their systems, as well as IP. At the same time, a couple of Chinese diplomats met with Brazilian federal district judges to present a gift to the courts.

  • Judicial engagement between the PRC and LAC governments isn’t new, but it’s certainly a bit more of a rarity than foreign ministry-to-foreign ministry or legislative engagement. In the past, judges from countries like Venezuela and Argentina have met with PRC diplomats and judges, though it is unclear if these meetings resulted in any tangible outcomes aside from a pleasant conversation.

Core Brief

Going Local: Chinese Provincial and Municipal LAC Engagement

As I frequently note in this newsletter, China does not engage as a monolith in the region; lots of government ministries and party departments — like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the CCP’s International Department — operate in LAC. But this engagement isn’t just dispersed horizontally across government, party, and business institutions; it’s also spread vertically across Chinese provinces and cities.

This week, I wanted to take a quick look at why and how Chinese sub-national authorities engage with the region. Though this is an incredibly complicated (and honestly under-researched) issue, generally speaking, a diverse array of actors from Chinese sub-national entities engage with LAC across all different kinds of issues in all different kinds of settings.

With all this diversity, it’s impossible to craft an overarching narrative about Chinese sub-national engagement in LAC. It seems there’s no one set model for Chinese subnational diplomacy. But in general, it is possible to say Chinese sub-national officials pursue a relationship with LAC both to support their own local economic and social policy goals as well as to support Beijing’s overarching national foreign policy.

A bit of background

It’s obvious that China is a big country, but before diving in, I want to emphasize just how big these cities and provinces are.

Of the more than 600 cities in the PRC, 18 have a population of more than 10 million, which is more than about half the countries in Latin America (such as the Dominican Republic or Honduras). The most populous province in China — Guangdong — has a population of about 127 million people, which is just a few million fewer than Mexico.

These cities and provinces are simply massive at the economic level, too. Of the 33 provincial-level administrative divisions1 in China, all but four have a GDP of more than $100 billion, which is roughly the size of Costa Rica’s or Venezuela’s entire economy. Even Mexico, the second-largest economy in Latin America, has an economy smaller than Guangdong or Jiangsu provinces, and is just about on par with Shandong and Zhejiang.

Why engage?

With populations and economies the size of countries, many of China’s massive cities and provinces naturally have interests abroad. As a result, these sub-national entities pursue sub-national diplomacy to support their economic development back home. Just like anywhere else (but on a larger scale), local and provincial officials look abroad to generate a positive trade and investment environment, learn new local government best practices, and advertise their home’s unique culture.

That said, Chinese sub-national entities don’t just engage with their LAC counterparts to advance their local interests; sub-national engagement also serves the national government’s concerns. When sub-national entities advance economic, social, and cultural ties, they often support economic development back home and a positive image of China abroad.

Recognizing this, the PRC State Council’s second White Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean called out these kinds of sub-national exchanges by name and promised to further encourage them. More specifically, it suggested that “local governments on both sides conduct friendly exchanges and cooperation, [and] share experience in local development and governance.”

Types of engagement

Political engagement, such as establishing sister-city ties or sending high-level delegations, often gets the most attention in the more local-level relationships. And frankly, it’s for good reason – Chinese provinces and cities have signed countless “sister city” and “sister province” agreements in LAC.

These types of agreements range from large and notable localities, like Beijing-Mexico City, to the more obscure, like Entre Ríos (Argentina)-Henan. Even a fairly small city, like the capital of Dominica, Roseau, has been pursued in Chinese sub-national diplomacy with its sister-city arrangements with Yiwu and Jining City.

That said, provincial and municipal engagement extends far beyond the vague lines of sister city arrangements. Provinces and cities often engage in high-level delegations that can lead to tangible new investments, trading relationships, or cultural and social exchanges.

Earlier this year, a business delegation from the Shandong Commercial and Investment Association visited Ñuble in Chile to discuss tourism, agriculture, and renewable energy. Just a few months later, the Ñuble city of San Carlos signed an agreement with a Shandong business association (and presumably some Shandong businesses) to build a new agribusiness industrial park. And in the realm of social and cultural exchanges, Hunan Province has been very active in the Dominican Republic. Its recent activities have included hosting a forum in the DR to promote cultural tourism and donating agricultural equipment.

What kinds of Chinese officials are engaging?

Notably, all these types of activities include a diverse array of Chinese actors. Though sub-national government officials often lead these delegations or sign these MOUs, provincial and municipal interactions can also include sub-national party, civil society, or business leaders. These city and provincial governments almost always have a staff just focused on international ties, and sometimes they employ officials to just focus on their city’s or province’s ties with Latin America and the Caribbean.

Yet this diversity belies the fact that sub-national engagement creates opportunities for LAC cities, states, and countries to creatively engage with their counterparts in new ways.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• The PRC’s Special Representative for Latin American Affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, led a delegation to Cuba to meet with President Díaz-Canel and to engage in “exchanges at different levels and tours of projects of interest in various provinces.” In a meeting with Cuba’s foreign minister, Qiu later emphasized infrastructure, biotechnology, and tourism cooperation.

• The Head of the Chinese Communist Party’s Society Work Department, Wu Hansheng, visited Venezuela to discuss “economic cooperation, energy, cultural exchanges, and social programs” with President Maduro. He later stopped through Brazil as well.

• Chinese Premier Li Qiang discussed “resetting” bilateral relations and rekindling economic ties during a call with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. The call came days after Carney said that removing Chinese trade barriers on the country’s agriculture exports was a priority, as well as after Canada’s trade minister reviewed economic and trade concerns with the PRC’s Minister of Commerce on the sidelines of a WTO ministerial. (Global Times)

• During a reception marking the 53^rd anniversary of Chinese-Guyanese relations, President Ali noted that he had repeatedly discussed safeguarding Guyana’s sovereignty (presumably from Venezuelan coercion) with Chinese representatives. Meanwhile, newly-arrived Ambassador Yang Yang said that in addition to traditional fields like mining and agriculture, she looks forward to engaging on topics like “digital economy, green development, and artificial intelligence.”

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• The Brazilian state of Bahia signed an agreement with China Railway 20th Bureau Group (CRCC) and China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) to build a $1.82 billion bridge between Salvador and Itaparica Island.

• Barbadian Prime Minister Mottley said that her government was in talks with a Chinese company to build and finance a 40% expansion of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

• Just as China Railway Number 10 Engineering Group Company completed construction of the 270-kilometer highway to Tacna, Peruvian prosecutors opened an investigation into irregularities in the tender process.

• A new $590 million wind farm by Power China opened in Chubut, Argentina.

• China Communications Construction Company started construction on the $83 million, 70 MW Enesolar-3 solar plant in Nicaragua.

• Bolivia and China signed an Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement and an MOU on global development. The most tangible deliverable appears to be a 100 million Renminbi donation for jointly decided projects, as well as US$500,000 to fight natural disasters.

• Canada’s BC Ferries selected Chinese state-owned China Merchants Industry Weihai Shipyards to build four new large ferries; however, British Columbia's transport minister apparently raised concerns about the economic implications of the decision.

Trade and technology

• A new phytosanitary trade deal will facilitate Uruguayan soybean and rapeseed exports to the PRC.

• Peru’s massive blueberry industry is rebalancing towards the PRC due to U.S. tariffs, new trade opportunities due to the Port of Chancay, and growing Chinese demand.

• China recently hosted Honduran business representatives for a training on white shrimp cultivation to support that politically sensitive industry. Relatedly, the PRC donated 42 modules to expand the country’s System of Technological and Agricultural Innovation Centers (SCITA).

• Even as U.S. sanctions are looking to put a squeeze on Caracas, Venezuelan oil exports to China are stabilizing, and possibly growing, with “Chinese companies like China Concord Petroleum and Anhui Guangda Mining are signing secretive production-sharing deals to operate oil fields and pursue greenfield projects.”

Taiwan

• Even without formal diplomatic relations, the Costa Rican government dispatched five intelligence officials to Taiwan for national security training.

• Taiwan donated $2.59 million to St. Lucia to support “various social and developmental needs in communities throughout the island.” The bulk of the money will be used for the Small Infrastructure Initiative to rehabilitate infrastructure like roads and bridges.

• A Taiwanese EV trade mission will visit Mexico, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Brazil later this year. Relatedly, Taiwanese diplomats will also hold trade talks in Brazil later this year.

• Belize’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Francis Fonseca, signed a “bilateral cooperation agreement” on unspecified matters with Taiwan’s ambassador.

• Paraguay will now export pork to Taiwan duty-free, according to the South American country’s trade minister.

Society and culture

• The general secretariat of the Andean Community and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) co-hosted a forum on mutual learning and high-level cooperation. Also at the forum, Beijing’s Ambassador to Peru almost word-for-word mimicked Xi’s recent pronouncements on security cooperation to suggest increased police cooperation.

  • Later, CASS signed an agreement with the University of Chile to strengthen academic and student exchanges.

• The Cuban ambassador to Beijing and the Shanghai consul general opened a Cultural Center in Zhejiang province.

• Deepening cultural ties, the Chinese embassy in Costa Rica hosted its first dragon boat race (in cooperation with the local Zhongshan Association). (CGTN) At the same time, the PRC’s ambassador visited a local university to mark the anniversary of the first Chinese arrival in the Central American country.

• Beijing’s Ambassador to the Bahamas, Yan Jiarong, met with the managing editor of the local paper, The Tribune, to discuss China-Bahamas media cooperation. (FMPRC)

• The University of Huaqiao agreed to launch a digital platform to teach Chinese in Argentina with the local Chinese Cultural and Education Foundation.

• In a bid to combat migration to the United States, Ecuador will require Chinese citizens to apply for a transit visa when transiting through the country.

  o This marks a big departure for Ecuador, which at one point was one of the only Latin American and Caribbean countries to not require a visa for PRC citizens.

Analysis and Opinion

• Nathan Attrill argued in the ASPI Strategist that Haiti and St. Lucia were the Taiwanese diplomatic partners most likely to flip recognition to the PRC.

• A new article from Hugh Harsono in the Small Wars Journal looks at how “China leverages open-source technologies and digital infrastructure as instruments of statecraft in Peru, advancing strategic influence through gray zone operations without conventional force projection.”

• In Americas Quarterly, Leland Lazarus wrote about the five pillars of future China-LAC ties that Xi Jinping highlighted in his speech to the China-CELAC ministerial, while Gregory Ross explained how “Chinese demand for South American commodities, expanding export markets in Asia and the Middle East... [are] raising the Paraguay-Paraná’s geopolitical profile.”

• Ryan Berg and Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno argue in Foreign Policy that “the reprioritization of Latin America in the United States’ foreign policy, coupled with the high-level visits by cabinet officials, has placed China on the back foot in the region.”

• The pseudonymous A. Bermúdez wrote about Nicaraguan mining concessions to Chinese companies for The Diplomat, arguing that “the Nicaragua model may serve as a blueprint for Chinese engagement with authoritarian states.” Also in The Diplomat, Martin Brown questions whether Brazil’s burgeoning commercial ties with the PRC have given China too much “economic control.”

• Han Zhen explained how Chinese scholar Tang Yongyan has been documenting the Chinese-Cuban experience, which was “shaped by indenture, revolution, Cold War politics, and the painful erosion of transnational family bonds,” for the China Global South Project.

• Based on observations from a recent trip to Bogotá, Evan Ellis wrote about China-Colombian relations for CSIS. The Atlantic Council will host an event on the topic on June 20.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

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Today’s edition covers May 19 to June 2

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The Top 5 Stories:

• The proposed Chinese-supported trans-Oceanic railway from Brazil to Peru continues to gain steam. In late May, the Peruvian finance minister hosted a meeting with the head of China’s railway administration and Brazil’s export promotion agency to discuss reviving the project. (Global Times)

  • First announced in 2015, the trans-oceanic railroad would connect South America’s Atlantic and Pacific ports via a rail line through Brazil, Peru, and possibly Bolivia. Though the very expensive idea has never gotten off the drawing board, U.S. coercion over the Panama Canal has likely renewed PRC companies’ and government officials’ interest in establishing an additional transit link to Atlantic-facing countries like Argentina and Brazil.

• Brazilian prosecutors filed a lawsuit against BYD and two of its contractors for creating conditions “analogous to slavery” at their factory construction site. The Public Labor Prosecutor's Office is seeking 257 million Brazilian reais ($45.5 million) in damages from the companies.

  • In late 2024, Brazilian authorities shut down Jinjiang Construction Brazil’s construction of a new BYD electric vehicle plant in Bahia after it discovered the company’s employees were working in “slave-like” conditions. Reportedly, the workers lacked access to their passports, lived in sleeping facilities without mattresses or adequate restroom facilities, and had their wages regularly withheld.

• A Confucius Institute opened at the Francisco Morazán National Pedagogical University (UPNFM) in Honduras. At the same time, UPNFM signed a cooperation agreement with the Zhejiang University of International Studies (ZISU) to establish student exchanges. Furthering education cooperation, the Central American country received unspecified “materials” from China to expand seven agricultural schools in the country, as well as a $100 million donation to support “education, infrastructure, [and] health” projects. (CGTN)

  • This is at least the fifth Confucius Institute in Central America,1 but it is the first such institute in Honduras. While these academic institutions are largely focused on promoting the Chinese language and culture, they serve as a valuable soft power tool in promoting a positive image of the PRC.

• Canada joined seven other countries with non-official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in expressing support for the nation’s inclusion in the World Health Assembly. Belize and St. Vincent’s representatives to the WHA also voiced their support for Taiwan during the session, while Taiwan’s other diplomatic allies, namely Guatemala, Haiti, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and Paraguay demonstrated their support for Taiwan by attending a separate hosted reception.

  • Taiwan was a non-state observer at the WHO’s World Health Assembly from 2009-2015, but ever since the DPP returned to head Taiwan’s government in 2016, Taipei has been banned from formally attending the gathering. While returning to the assembly is highly unlikely in the near term, Taiwan has made returning to the assembly a priority by rallying diplomatic support from friendly countries.

• In a show of support for the ROC, Guatemala announced President Arevalo will travel to Taiwan (and Japan) in June. The trip will reportedly focus on advancing “bilateral projects related to Guatemala’s technology development.”

  • When President Arevalo was first elected, there was some initial speculation that his government might seek to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing in a bid to attract Chinese trade and investment. This visit will likely quell those concerns, at least in the short term.

Core Brief

Xi just isn’t the same: President Xi’s CELAC speech shows how China isn’t just focused on commercial ties

In early May, Beijing hosted heads of state, foreign ministers, and other representatives from nearly every Latin America and the Caribbean country. As discussed in Chaufa’s last issue, the IV China-CELAC ministerial’s joint declaration shows that the ministerial was a comparatively notable affair, with high-level representation and significant deliverables.

Aside from the joint declarations that I analyzed last time, the summit also featured a notable speech from President Xi. Unlike the declaration, which (at least in theory) reflects the joint priorities and aspirations of both China and the LAC attendees, this speech articulates China’s perspective on its regional priorities.

Admittedly, Xi’s speech is full of platitudes and vague pronouncements. But when compared to previous major speeches on China-LAC ties to regional leaders, Xi’s speech not only shows how the way PRC officials talk about cross-Pacific ties has changed, but also how China’s priorities and future agenda have shifted from narrow economic concerns to broader social, political, and security cooperation.

What Xi used to focus on

Xi has delivered countless speeches and comments in the past decade that touch on policies that impact China-LAC relations. For the sake of simplicity, I want to largely focus on two previous addresses: the 2014 speech at the China-Latin American and Caribbean Countries Leaders’ Meeting in Brasilia and the 2015 speech at the Opening Ceremony of the First Ministerial Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum in Beijing.2

The former was one of Xi’s most important policy statements on China-LAC ties, with him introducing the 1+3+6 formula that put trade, investment, and finance at the heart of the China-LAC relationship. During the speech, he also touched on each side respecting the other’s “core interests,” promoting people-to-people exchanges,3 multilateral collaboration through institutions like the UN, G20, and APEC, and strengthening bilateral ties through initiatives like the China-CELAC forum. But he spent nearly as many words describing economic ties as he did on these other four priority areas.4

In the 2015 speech, Xi also identified commercial ties and supporting LAC’s economic development as the relationship’s central driver. For example, at the end of the address, Xi offered two ways for China to help the region. One was a vague promise of “an independent foreign policy of peace.” The other was China’s outlook for a “medium to high rate of growth,” which he suggested would lead to very specific trade, investment, and tourism outcomes. Of the two, it was only the latter economic-focused promise that wasn’t just filled with vague platitudes.

What was new in the 2025 speech

This year’s speech had three main differences: a specific connection between the PRC’s One-China Policy and regional sovereignty concerns, contextualizing China-LAC relations by not-so-subtly criticizing the United States, and dramatically expanding the specific priority areas of bilateral cooperation.5

Taiwan and “National Sovereignty”

This year’s comments on “safeguarding sovereignty and independence, and opposing external interference” went much further than previous years by specifically linking the PRC’s desire to take over Taiwan with LAC’s historic sovereignty issues.

In the past, Xi touched on China and LAC countries minding their own business by “following the path of development suited to their national conditions.” Highlighting the PRC’s support for Panama gaining control of its canal in the 1970s, the region’s “campaign for 200-nautical-mile maritime rights,” and China’s opposition to the U.S.’s Cuban embargo, this year Xi directly linked these regional sovereignty issues to his desire to control Taiwan by mentioning the One China Principle by name.

While it is common practice for Chinese diplomats to connect the One China Principle to local LAC sovereignty issues, Xi’s explicit connection elevates the importance of China’s Taiwan concerns in a region that hosts seven of Taiwan’s formal diplomatic partners (as well as seven countries with non-official Taiwan missions).

Criticizing the United States

The second issue, criticizing “tariff wars”, “hegemonism”, and “unilateralism and protectionism” in a not-so-subtle dig at the Trump Administration, shows how the Chinese side is increasingly unconcerned about competition with the United States. In the past, the closest Xi came to criticizing the United States was by implicitly suggesting that the international order was insufficiently “just and fair.” By and large, Xi’s previous speeches solely focused on what China prioritized and offered to the region, rather than contrasting the PRC with LAC’s northern neighbor.

This time, Xi dedicated an entire paragraph in the middle of the address criticizing the United States. Aside from a dig on the U.S.’s Cuban embargo, he refrained from explicitly mentioning Washington or Trump in his speech by name. But his references to “geopolitical and bloc confrontation and the surging tide of unilateralism and protectionism,” “tariff wars or trade wars,” and “bullying or hegemonism” were a not-so-subtle refutation of the Trump administration and Washington’s broader policy trajectory. As the current U.S. administration prioritizes competition with China in the region, Xi’s speech suggests that his country plans to lean in, rather than back down, from a contest or conflict.

New areas of collaboration

Just like the China-CELAC declaration, Xi highlighted issues that he had never previously raised in one of these all-encompassing speeches.

One issue set that he never previously addressed was China’s support for natural disasters and pandemic relief in the region. Xi spent a whole paragraph on the issue, naming earthquake and hurricane response, as well as supplying medical teams, medical supplies, and vaccines as one of the key areas of bilateral cooperation.

Another new area was security issues. Aside from cybersecurity (which was mentioned in 2014), Xi’s suggestion to collaborate in “disaster governance, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, anti-corruption, narcotics control and combating transnational organized crime” identified all new areas of engagement on peace and security matters.

Other new areas of collaboration included “civilizational” topics and cutting-edge technologies. On the former, Xi suggested collaboration in the arts and archeological projects, as well as “combatting illicit trafficking of cultural property.” On the latter, he noted clean energy, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy, all areas in which the Chinese economy is increasingly competitive.

While for the most part, China has long worked on many of these topics in the region (and Xi and his subordinates have mentioned these issues in other speeches), Xi’s choice to give these non-commercial issues just as much, if not more, weight than commercial topics in a broadly-focused speech shows that the China-LAC relationship is graduating beyond one driven by trade, finance, and investment.

Xi’s explicit deliverables

Similar to the structure of the 2014 address, Xi separated China’s engagement into five buckets. But unlike the earlier speech, the specific areas of cooperation highlighted across the five topics (international solidarity [political ties], economic development, civilizational exchanges, peace and security cooperation, and people-to-people ties) were much less focused on commercial engagement.6

For reference, the following list of deliverables sprinkled throughout the address (some of which have been previously reported, but others I have not seen highlighted as much):

1. Solidarity Program

   1. Invite “300 members from political parties” to China each year7

2. Development Program

   1. CN¥66 billion RMB (USD 9 billion) credit line

   2. Expand cooperation in emerging areas such as clean energy, 5G telecommunications, the digital economy, and artificial intelligence

   3. Carry out the China-LAC Science and Technology Partnership

3. Civilization Program

   1. A Conference on China-LAC Inter-Civilizational Dialogue

   2. A Latin American and Caribbean Arts Season

   3. Joint archaeological projects, conservation and restoration of ancient and historic sites, and museum exhibitions

   4. Combat illicit trafficking of cultural property

4. Peace Program

   1. Organize law enforcement training programs

   2. Provide law enforcement equipment assistance

5. People-to-People Connectivity Program

   1. 3,500 government scholarships, 10,000 training opportunities in China, 500 International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarships, 300 training opportunities for poverty reduction professionals, 1,000 Chinese Bridge-funded placements, 300 "small and beautiful" livelihood projects

   2. Translate and introduce 10 premium TV dramas and audiovisual programs annually to each other

   3. China-LAC Tourism Dialogue

   4. Visa exemptions for five countries, with a promise to further expand visa exemptions into the future

What does this mean for the future of China-LAC ties?

Since President Xi’s trade, finance, and investment-focused speech at the China-LAC leaders’ summit in 2014, Chinese-LAC engagement has been a story of economic cooperation. From major infrastructure projects like the Port of Chancay in Peru, notable investments in countries like Mexico, and FTAs with countries like Ecuador and Nicaragua, the most eye-catching news stories about Chinese-LAC cooperation have almost always been commercial.

This year’s speech highlights that it is no longer the case that commercial ties are the driver of China-LAC relations.

Of course, this does not mean that economic ties are not important — Chinese companies, financial institutions, and government agencies will no doubt continue to deepen their trade, investment, and financing engagement with the region. But if Xi’s speech is any clue, over the next decade expect a broader range of Chinese state and non-state actors to raise the salience of China’s desire to take over Taiwan, explicitly criticize and compete with the United States, and expand China’s political, cultural, social, and security ties.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• A close advisor to President Xi and Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Wang Huning, met with the President of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Gutiérrez Luna, in Beijing. The two discussed enhancing parliamentary exchanges, boosting cultural cooperation, and deepening cooperation in infrastructure construction. (Xinhua) (China Daily)

• Cuban Communist Party leader Beatriz Johnson sat down with the head of the CCP’s International Department Liu Jianchao to expand inter-party ties. Meanwhile, Cuba was one of the more than 30 countries to join China’s newly-established International Organization for Mediation in Hong Kong.

  • The organization seeks to provide an “alternative” to traditional arbitration mechanisms.

• As part of her visit to China for the IV China-CELAC Forum, Ecuadorian Finance Minister Sariha Moya met with several major Chinese finance institutions, including CDB, China Ex-IM, ICBC, and the AIIB, to discuss financing new green energy and roadwork projects. At the same time, the head of an Ecuadorian exporters association held discussions with the Bank of China and Huawei on new technology cooperation opportunities.

• Uruguay’s president and foreign minister welcomed a delegation led by the Vice Chair of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, with the two sides discussing enhancing diplomatic and trade ties.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• Ecuador suspended four of Chinese firm Terraearth Resources S.A.’s mining concessions in Napo for failing to follow environmental regulations.

• A Bolivian court ordered the immediate suspension of Chinese (and Russian) lithium contracts due to environmental and indigenous rights concerns.

• The Chinese ambassador to El Salvador confirmed that Chinese companies are in talks with the Salvadorian government to build a metro system in the country. The ambassador also said that the PRC’s embassy has had a military attaché in the country since 2024.

• Chinese Ambassador to Bogota Zhu Jingyang offered to provide new lines of finance to support Colombian infrastructure development if Washington followed through on its threats to veto multilateral bank financing to the country.

• Despite previous pushback from Beijing, President of CK Hutchison Victor Li defended his company’s decision to sell its global port assets, including two ports in Panama, due to “geopolitical tensions.”

• Chinese firm Yadea opened a $78 million electric motorcycle plant in Ocoyoacac, Mexico. Meanwhile, a delegation of business and government leaders from Hunan province discussed developing deeper business ties in Mexico City. (CGTN)

• Guyanese Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo defended Chinese nationals working in the country’s construction sector, arguing that “the Chinese may be able to do it [build hotels and infrastructure] faster and, in some cases, cheaper.”

• Ice cream firm Mixue will invest more than $600 million when expanding into Brazil, while Chinese automaker GAC announced it will build a hybrid and electric car factory in late 2026.

Trade and technology

• ZIM shipping launched a new weekly direct sea route between Xiamen and three countries in South America (Chile, Ecuador, and Peru). The route will start with 11 ships per week, with a capacity of 4,000-5,000 containers.

• During his visit to China for the IV China-CELAC Forum, Brazilian President Lula suggested that Chinese satellite companies could use his country’s Alcântara Space Center (CEA) for future launches.

• Venezuelan Minister of Industry and Production Alex Saab hosted a Chinese delegation to discuss trade cooperation and joint development.

• The Bolivian foreign minister signed a trade protocol on the sidelines of the IV China-CELAC forum with the PRC that will permit Bolivia bovine hide exports. Likewise, Uruguay signed a phytosanitary protocol to allow rapeseed and soy flour exports to China.

• Due to the Trump Administration’s tariffs, Canadian seaborne crude oil exports to China surpassed exports to the United States. This in turn shows how U.S. trade policy is forcing some companies towards closer engagement with the PRC.

Taiwan

• Paraguayan President Santiago Peña offered that his country could serve as a bridge between the United States and Taiwan, possibly by hosting a meeting between President Trump and Lai. Relatedly, Taiwan’s foreign minister suggested that Paraguay could act as a diplomatic bridge between Mercosur and the Asian island.

• Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that later this year, the Asian country will permit Belizean white shrimp imports for the first time.

• With support from the Taiwan Technical Mission, St. Lucia opened a new Digital Development Centre in Dennery North.

• Taiwan donated $200,000 to the OECS’s Eastern Caribbean Solar Challenge, which will deploy solar panels in St. Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and St Kitts and Nevis.

• St. Vincent’s Unity Labour Party published an op-ed committing the country’s relationship with Taiwan.

Society and culture

• A Colombian education institute signed an MOU with three Chinese universities to strengthen academic, scientific, and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

• Dean of the Chinese University of Communication, Li Huailiang, met with the president of the Cuban Association of Journalists to discuss collaboration opportunities, including harnessing AI.

• The Chinese embassy in Barbados donated $130,000 in medical supplies to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

• In a press conference, Chinese Ambassador to the Bahamas Yan Jiarong said that a Hunan medical mission will provide free eye surgeries later this year. She also noted that her country will provide new grants to help with various projects in the country.

• The People’s Daily featured a story on how a TV show set in Brazil was one of the first popular and widely-watched TV shows in China after reform and opening.

Analysis and Opinion

• Speaking to AS/COA’s Latin America: In Focus podcast, Margaret Myers discussed “the shifting state of play in the U.S.-China competition, the Trump administration’s approach, and the view from Beijing to understand the changing picture for the region's leaders.”

• Writing in The Diplomat, Nand Bardouille argued that Caribbean nations are feeling squeezed between the United States and China.

• Guillaume Ptak wrote about how “from the Bahamas to Barbados, China’s footprint [in the Caribbean] is expanding through infrastructure, trade and diplomatic engagement” in the Washington Times.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers May 5 to May 18

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The Top 4 Stories:

• The PRC hosted the fourth China-CELAC ministerial summit in Beijing on May 13. Dozens of Latin American and Caribbean leaders met with their Chinese counterparts to announce new investments (including $5 billion in new investments just in Brazil alone), a new $9.2 billion line of credit, new visa-free access for five countries (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay), and a pledge to increase Chinese imports of LAC goods. The summit also produced a joint declaration and an action plan. Three Latin American presidents, namely Chilean President Boric, Colombian President Petro, and Brazilian President Lula, attended the summit in person.1 Notably, President Xi used his speech to criticize U.S. unilateralism and protectionism. Interestingly, representatives from two Taiwanese diplomatic partners, Haiti and St. Lucia, also attended the summit.2

  • Compared to years past, this year’s China-CELAC ministerial was fairly consequential. Though the intermittently held ministerial (which is typically held every 3 years or so) provides a good opportunity for the PRC to announce new initiatives in the region and build on existing bilateral relationships, the China-CELAC mechanism goes far beyond this tri-annual diplomatic exercise. Chinese state and party officials regularly meet with their LAC counterparts through smaller, issue-specific gatherings on topics like political party cooperation, science and technology, and agriculture.

• Colombia officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), making it the 23rd LAC country to align with President Xi’s signature foreign policy initiative. Petro’s government later announced it would also join the BRICS-aligned New Development Bank. In retaliation, the U.S. State Department promised to “strongly oppose recent projects and upcoming disbursements” from the Inter-American Development Bank to Colombia. In particular, this could affect the bank’s funding for future parts of Bogota’s metro project, which might be built by Chinese firms.

  • Given Bogota’s historically close relationship with Washington, Colombia's joining the BRI is a big deal in symbolic terms. Although it is unlikely that the Andean country will receive substantially more financing or investment just because of the agreement, the deal tangibly highlights Colombia’s warmer ties to Beijing.

  • With Colombia joining the BRI, only three LAC countries (excluding Taiwan’s diplomatic partners) are left to join the initiative: the Bahamas, Brazil, and Mexico.

• The Honduran secretaries of finance and energy led a delegation to China, where they discussed the Patuca II-A dam with the China International Development Cooperation Agency and signed two letters of intent: one on technology transfer with the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO), and another on strengthening commercial ties with the PRC Export-Import Bank (EXIM). The secretaries also discussed infrastructure project public tenders and concessional credits for climate-resilient infrastructure with Chinese companies.

  • Since Tegucigalpa established formal diplomatic relations with Beijing a few years ago, Sino-Honduran ties have been fast-tracked with major trade agreement negotiations, new infrastructure projects, and a notable presidential visit. However, some candidates in this year’s presidential contest have hinted that if they are elected, they would restart relations with Taiwan. Deepening investments and bilateral cooperation suggest that these political pledges are not deterring Chinese business engagement with the Central American country, at least for now.

• U.S. Secretary of State Rubio told a group of leaders from the Bahamas and East Caribbean “to make responsible, transparent decisions when selecting vendors and contractors... ensuring they are not vulnerable to privacy and security risks and exploitation by Chinese actors.” This comes as a host of U.S. officials used their platforms this week to warn about Chinese influence:

  • U.S. Envoy to Latin America Claver-Carone admitted that he had told Argentine President Milei that “as long as Argentina has the [currency] swap with China, [it] will not be free.”

  • Ambassador to Guatemala Bradley argued that “using Chinese technology or doing business with that country carries a risk.”

  • Likely future ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Leah Francis Campos, said that she would “tirelessly” work to counter Chinese influence in the region.

  • Newly arrived ambassador in Panama City, Kevin Cabrera, called the PRC a “harmful influence” in Panama.

Core Brief

How the 4th China-CELAC ministerial compares to past years

There’s been a lot of great analysis on the results and implications so far – I particularly appreciated Tim Padgett’s WLRN article and this Atlantic Council Q&A. So, rather than talk about what the summit means or how it could impact future relations, I wanted to look backward to previous summits and how this ministerial compares.

Between the especially high-level participation and the notable and relatively specific policy commitments like visa-free access for five countries and $9.2 billion in financing, this ministerial appears to be a diplomatic win for the PRC. Yet with some governments refraining from letting their foreign ministers attend the event, the ministerial also highlighted the trouble a lot of countries are facing in balancing ties between Beijing and Washington.

A bit of context

Before this year’s conclave in Beijing, Chinese and LAC foreign ministers have met in this China-CELAC ministerial format three times: once virtually in 2021, once in Chile in 2018, and once in China in 2015.3

Typically, these forums last 1-2 days and feature discussions between the Chinese and CELAC members’ foreign ministers on a wide range of issues. This, in turn, usually leads to the publication of both a bland joint ministerial declaration signed by all the participants and a work statement that plans the next few years of China-CELAC engagement.

Who showed up

Understandably, some of the most attention was paid to the LAC heads of state who met with Xi and took the headlines at the summit. Yet contrary to one commenter’s suggestion that only having three presidents show up to the forum “shows both a weakness of CELAC & China”, having multiple presidents attend a CELAC forum is outside the norm.

Of the three previous summits, only the first ministerial in Beijing had any heads of state or government as regular participants. Back in 2015, Costa Rican President Solís, Venezuelan President Maduro, and Ecuadorian President Correa of Ecuador participated, as well as Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie, who attended the event. But in the 2^nd and 3^rd forums, the only heads of state or government that showed up were the hosts (Chile in 2018 and Mexico in 2021), and even then, they only appeared to give opening remarks.

Why the low attendance by heads of state? Well, this should be expected, given that China-CELAC is mostly a ministerial organization, and the highest-level meeting is a ministerial meeting. Unlike the African equivalent, FOCAC, it has never really featured head-of-state-level interactions.

Given this context, having three very different presidents, even if they are all from the left-leaning camp, shows China’s continued attractiveness and importance in the region.4 Really, the only person who appears to have skipped who probably could have attended was Argentine President Milei, who planned to originally visit in January for a tentatively-scheduled summit date but who ultimately sent a low-level envoy instead.

When it comes to foreign ministers in attendance, it appears to have been a mixed bag of mostly left-leaning countries. Countries ranging from Mexico to Cuba to Uruguay to Peru, as well as nine Caribbean countries, dispatched their foreign ministers. But it appears that some other governments that are trying to mollify Washington at the moment, like Panama or Argentina,5 sent a lower-level diplomatic representative instead.

What’d they talk about

At first glance, something titled the “Beijing Declaration of the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum” would be a pretty dry and uninspiring document. And at first glance, you’d probably be right: like most summit-concluding statements, this one contains a lot of platitudes and vague promises.

As in past years, the summit declarations included a lot of backslapping, as well as vague commentary on the overlapping development trajectories of China and LAC and commitments to a multilateral rules-based international order. Yet when compared to previous declarations, the 4th China-CELAC summit declaration suggests there were some pretty massive changes in what was discussed at the summit (see here for the 2021, 2018, and 2015 declarations).

A lot of topics appeared for the first time in this document. Some topics, like AI governance and cybersecurity, Brazil’s Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty initiative, and China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), reflect the newest policy issues and proposals.

Other issues, namely addressing Haiti’s political crisis, tackling transnational criminal organizations’ drug and human trafficking, combating terrorism, reforming the UN Security Council and global financial institutions,6 and affirming the One China Principle, are long-standing issues but were only mentioned in this document for the first time. This, in turn, reflects new priorities and areas of agreement in the China-LAC relationship, most of which reflect longstanding concerns of LAC countries.

The documents also highlight the deeper reach of Chinese diplomacy in the region. Like previous statements, the declaration recognizes Chinese cooperation with regional institutions like CAF and ECLAC. However, for the first time, the document notes the PRC’s connections with other regional organizations, namely Parlacen, Parlatino, FLASCO, and SELA. While these aren’t necessarily the most powerful organizations in the region, the references to these organizations certainly show China’s broader diplomatic reach compared to previous years.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• President Xi met with Cuban President Díaz-Canel and Venezuelan President Maduro in Russia for the celebrations of the 80^th anniversary of the Soviet victory over the Nazis. The Cubans largely discussed political cooperation in international affairs, while the Venezuelans also emphasized trade and energy. (FMPRC)

• In early May, Uruguay opened a new consulate in Hong Kong expressly to promote new trade and investment opportunities.

• A Chinese delegation headed by the Director of the Ministry of Housing’s Office of Inspection and Disciplinary Supervision traveled to Peru to discuss anti-corruption cooperation in the infrastructure sector.

• Guatemala’s prosecutor accused President Arevalo of receiving a $13 million bribe in 2024 from a Chinese company to let the firm access a port on the Pacific coast.

• China’s ambassador and deputy chief of mission in the Bahamas met with the new commissioner of the country’s police force to discuss police exchanges and to express “gratitude and appreciation to her for the quick solution to the shooting involving a Chinese citizen.” (MFA)

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• Due to the collapse of lithium prices, BYD and Tsingshan admitted that they will not go ahead with previously-announced projects to convert lithium carbonate into cathodes for batteries in Chile. However, the Chinese embassy later stated that the two firms were still interested in building lithium-related plants in the Andean country in the future.

• A few days before the China-CELAC summit, Chinese companies, including Huawei, CCSI, and Yutong, signed four agreements with Nicaraguan government officials on communications, technology, transport and military weapons.

• Ecuador’s state oil company signed a $105 million contract with Sinopec to produce an additional 12,000 barrels of oil a day in the provinces of Orellana and Sucumbíos.

• A consortium led by CCCC and CHEC that is building the fourth bridge over the Panama Canal asked its local workforce to stop striking against the local government’s policies and “to resume their functions as soon as possible.”

• A new $38 million multi-use community and government office building that was built by China Harbour Engineering Company was opened in St. Thomas, Jamaica.

• During a meeting between China Three Gorges (CTG) and the Peruvian energy ministry, the Chinese company pledged to expand its renewable energy investments, including in electrification, hydropower, and green hydrogen works.

Trade and technology

• MOFCOM Vice Minister Ren Hongbin led a Chinese business delegation to Argentina to explore agribusiness, energy, and transport opportunities. This comes as Chinese businesses continue to invest heavily in the country, with Fufeng Group planning to invest $400 million in a new corn processing plant in Santa Fe.

• To circumvent U.S. sanctions, over the past 12 months, oil traders reportedly rebranded more than $1 billion of Venezuelan shipments to China as being sourced from Brazil.

Taiwan

• The Taiwanese embassy in Belize facilitated a medical equipment donation from the Cao Zhong Zhi Foundation to the Caribbean country’s health and wellness ministry. Taiwan’s government also donated similar medical supplies to St. Kitts.

• Taiwan’s ICDF helped launch a new white rice marketing project in southern Haiti.

• St. Vincent and Taiwan co-hosted a forum on smart cities and cybersecurity. Remarks by Taiwanese officials focused on the country’s extensive CCTV system, which they claimed was essential for maintaining public safety. The two countries also announced a new $1.5 million initiative to support youth community involvement projects.

Society and culture

• Journalists from the Cuban television channel Canal Caribe attended a seminar hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on improving telecommunications technology and news programming.

• China’s Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism traveled to Cusco and Lima to observe Peruvian culture and to share “good practices in the management and safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.”

Analysis and Opinion

• Tim Padgett wrote a great piece for WLRN on how “America is shocked to find it's playing catch-up with China on infrastructure, and influence, in the Americas. But little will change until President Trump chooses partnership over punishment.”

• The Atlantic Council published a Q&A with its expert community on the outcomes of the China-CELAC ministerial, touching on issues like Colombia’s accession to the BRI, the diplomatic consequences of the summit, and the implications for the United States.

• As part of Ryan Berg’s testimony to Congress, CSIS released new photographic evidence of Chinese signals intelligence collection stations in Cuba.7 The news prompted U.S. congressmen to request a comprehensive threat assessment on the bases from the homeland security department, while the Cuban government naturally denied the accusations.

• Chinese Ambassador to Jamaica, Chen Daojiang, wrote a piece for the Jamaica Gleaner highlighting trade, people-to-people exchanges, and BRI infrastructure improvements on the occasion of the 4^th China-CELAC ministerial.

• Arturo McFields argued that “the US is crushing China in real time in the Americas” in The Hill, while Nand Bardouille wrote for The Diplomat that “China continues to mount a challenge to U.S. power and influence in the Caribbean Community bloc.”

• A new piece by Evan Ellis in The Diplomat examines the challenges recently re-elected Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa will face in navigating a relationship with China.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

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Today’s edition covers April 21 to May 4

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• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended a BRICS ministerial in Brazil and met with President Lula and presidential advisor Amorim to discuss “expanding mutually beneficial cooperation in finance, energy,” and trade. Lula also praised China’s response to the U.S. “reciprocal tariffs,” just as Chinese soybean processors picked up the pace on purchasing Brazilian beans. (Xinhua) (FMPRC)

  • As an aspiring global power and regional hegemon, Brazil has long forged close political ties with China in multilateral fora like BRICS. However, with the United States putting new levels of pressure on the region through tariffs, security threats, and other kinds of diplomatic coercion, Brazil seems to be harnessing its relationship with China to fulfill its longstanding desires, such as crafting an alternative the U.S. dollar, further expanding its global trade presence, and taking a more prominent global leadership role.

• Venezuela’s Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, traveled to Beijing in late April to reportedly “consolidate joint policies and strengthen trade between both countries.” She met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, as well as Chinese International Trade Minister Wang Shouwen. The two sides also signed new energy, oil, investment, and health-related agreements. (Xinhua)

  • Chinese-Venezuelan ties have been deepening over the past few years, with the two sides agreeing to notable trade, technology, and political agreements over the past few years. However, given that China is also trying to maintain close ties with Guyana, this relationship is increasingly putting Beijing in a sticky situation as Maduro’s regime has increasingly threatened Guyana’s sovereignty.

• The president of Panama stressed that his government would no longer promote port development on the Isla Margarita, which is currently operated by Chinese firm Landbridge Group. Moreover, he suggested that Landbridge’s concession was “a badly given contract, it is a delinquent contract.” However, the Panama Maritime Authority later clarified that it was not aware of any possible sale of the Panama Colon Container Port.

  • This came as China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, the country’s top market regulator, said it was paying close attention to the proposed CK Hutchison-Blackrock port sale that would include two key Panamanian ports.

• Colombian President Petro will travel to China for the IV China-CELAC ministerial. As part of the trip, he expects to sign several new “trade treaties.” Petro isn’t the only one going alone — Chilean President Boric also confirmed he will be traveling to China (and Japan) for the ministerial. Relatedly, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Miao Deyu met with the ambassadors of Barbados, Colombia, Honduras, and Uruguay to prepare for the upcoming CELAC ministerial. (MOFA)

  • It remains to be seen whether other regional leaders, including Argentine President Milei, will travel to Beijing for the summit. That said, the fact that this major meeting is coming right as the Trump Administration has made China-LAC relations a foreign policy priority provides Beijing with an opportunity to flex its diplomatic muscles. Expect eye-catching new initiatives (though these may simply be re-packaged old projects, like the bi-oceanic corridor), bilateral agreements, and even multilateral accords.

• During a UN Security Council briefing on Haiti, a PRC diplomat to the UN attacked the United States for its role in Haiti’s ongoing security crisis. He notably called potential U.S. tariffs on Haiti as, “cruel and absurd, but also profoundly heartbreaking” (Global Times)

  • This isn’t the first time that China has pinned Haiti’s tragic security and political crisis on the United States – for example, China’s representative to the UN blamed the crisis on U.S. firearms trafficking back in 2024. But given China’s unique relationship with Haiti (they lack formal diplomatic ties, though each side has a trade office in the other’s capital) always makes any Chinese comments on Haiti’s political situation are notable.

Core Brief

Who shapes China’s LAC FP: The CCP’s International Department

It’s often easiest to describe Sino-Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) relations in terms of “China” or “Beijing” making a certain decision. But in reality, China’s interactions with LAC involve numerous actors with their own distinct priorities and processes.

Last time, I discussed how the LAC-focused portions of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) operate, but this week I wanted to focus on MOFA’s underdiscussed little brother: the CCP’s International Department (ID)

Unlike MOFA, the International Department (formerly called the International Liaison Department) is not actually a part of the government of the People’s Republic of China. Rather, it is a ministerial-level department in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself.

Though this distinction may seem trivial, it means that the department’s perspective and responsibilities differ significantly: rather than advancing the foreign policy of the country and interacting with other diplomats, the department is focused on “party-to-party exchanges and cooperation” to promote China’s foreign relations, showcase the CCP’s successes, expose party cadres to the world, and identify lessons from other countries to support the central leadership’s decision-making.

A quick background on the International Department

The modern iteration of the ID is a relatively new organization. Though the department predates MOFA by three years (it was founded in 1951), its activities for much of the 20^th century were largely focused on cultivating ties with other left-leaning parties around the world. This often meant engagement with LAC – think the Cuban Communist Party or the Shining Path in Peru – but it also limited the scope of interaction to only one portion of the region’s political spectrum.

It was really only after the 18^th National Party Congress in 2012 (which was the same congress that elevated Xi Jinping to the party’s top leadership position) that the party took a pre-eminent position in China’s foreign affairs. According to Neil Thomas, following the 18^th Party Congress, as well as 2017’s World Political Parties Dialogue, the ID has “enjoyed a markedly higher profile under Xi’s advocacy of a ‘new type of political party relations.’”

Because of these changes, over the past few years, the ID has taken a more prominent role in arranging meetings with local and national LAC leaders to promote the CCP’s political agenda. This doesn’t mean that the ID is any kind of replacement for MOFA or China’s other foreign policy-focused institutions, but rather it has given the CCP a distinct avenue for engagement with the parties that themselves operate the region’s democracies and autocracies.

Who makes decisions at the International Department?

Unlike MOFA, the head of the ID is quite active in maintaining relations with LAC countries. Not only has Minister Liu Jianchao (刘建超) (and former ambassador to the Philippines) headlined multilateral regional events like 2024’s China-CELAC Political Parties Forum and an ECLA meeting in Chile, but he has also traveled around the region to countries like Nicaragua and Chile.

Aside from Liu, ID currently has five vice ministers and two assistant ministers, but it seems that only three have regular interaction with the region. Vice Minister Ma Hui (马辉), a former ambassador to Cuba, appears to be the most active, traveling to countries like Argentina, Panama, and Peru. Vice Minister Li Mingxiang (李明祥) has served as an envoy to countries like the Dominican Republic, while Assistant Minister Zhao Shitong (赵世通) has met with Brazilian legislators in Beijing.

Underneath the vice and assistant ministers, ID does have a LAC-focused office called “Bureau V.”1 Not only does this bureau initiate and maintain relationships with LAC political parties across the political spectrum, but it also “carries out research on relevant political parties, political organizations, and countries in the region.”

The International Department’s LAC activities

So what do ID activities look like in Latin America and the Caribbean? Well, for the most part, they simply seem to be holding meetings that create relationships between the CCP and politicians of all political stripes.

Some countries do appear more favored than others. A great paper from Xinyu Zhang found that about 20% of the ID’s public meetings between 2013 and 2022 were between the CCP and the Cuban Communist Party. Mexico and Brazil also featured prominently, with each country hosting roughly 10-15% of ID’s regional meetings. But Zhang found that the ID has engaged in at least 19 countries over that period, showing that the ID’s focus is broad and not just limited to large countries or governments run by left-leaning parties.

The local leaders who participate in the ID’s meetings tend to be actively partisan politicians, though this can mean various levels of responsibilities or parts of society. Unlike MOFA, the ID isn’t as focused on non-political bureaucrats with technical specialties, such as a finance ministry official or a diplomat. But their meetings do range from heads of state to legislators to grass-roots party members to former presidents to even the occasional ambassador across the left-right political spectrum.

What is discussed in ID meetings isn’t especially clear from the read-outs, but it seems that the meetings are largely centered on political matters like the Taiwan issue, establishing regular party-to-party dialogues, or engagement in multilateral fora, rather than technical topics like financing, education, or health diplomacy.2 The ID also takes advantage of these discussions to explain China’s domestic political situation and to provide a model for other political parties and governing systems, though the extent of this activity seems to vary by country.3

What to take away

The CCP’s International Department might be a lot less famous than the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it still plays a major role in advancing China’s foreign policy across the region. Though its scope is largely constrained to political parties and discussing political topics, the department engages with at least dozens of parties across the political spectrum and in every corner of the hemisphere, creating new avenues to advance the CCP’s political priorities.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• In the midst of a relatively tense period in Sino-Guyanese ties, the PRC’s new ambassador, Yang Yang (杨扬), arrived in Georgetown. Yang previously served in Thailand and the MOFA’s Foreign Security Affairs Department.

• The Chinese ambassador to Chile accused the U.S. government of interfering in the development of a new super telescope in the country’s northern desert.

• A delegation of senior foreign affairs-focused officials from Heilongjiang traveled to Córdoba, Argentina, to discuss agricultural goods and machinery production. They also went to Antía to review economic and cultural exchanges.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• There was an arson attack on a hydroelectric plant owned by China International Water & Electric Corp CWE group in Biobio, prompting the Chinese embassy in Chile to warn that this kind of attack “seriously undermines the trust" of its companies in the country.

• China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) commenced construction in Mammee Bay, Jamaica, on a new section of road for the $700 million north-south highway project.

• China’s Wison New Energies signed the detailed feasibility study for an offshore LNG facility in Suriname.

• Officials from the El Salvadorian city of Chalatenango Sur asked the Chinese ambassador to help build three new wells that would cost $240,000.

• CMOC Group Limited of China reached an agreement to purchase the Canadian-owned Cangrejos gold and copper mining project in Ecuador. Similarly, an Australian firm sold its equity in the Cascabel copper mine to Jiangxi Copper Company Limited.

• Private Chinese firm Funfeng will invest $400 million in a corn processing plant in the Salta region of Argentina.

Trade and Technology

• A delegation of the PRC Ministry of Commerce and business officials led by Xiao Lu, the Department of Foreign Trade’s Deputy Director-General, traveled to Honduras to discuss agricultural product purchases. (CGTN) A large Chinese trade mission, including companies like ICBC, ZTE, and the Bank of China, also visited Argentina.

• China's Guangzhou Port opened a new direct trade route to the COSCO-owned and operated Chancay mega port in Peru. The new port also inspired Beijing’s ambassador to Lima to say that bilateral relations had entered “a new historical era.” A new direct route between Zhuhai and Brazil also opened.

• The U.S. Southern Command claimed that Chinese hackers recently infiltrated the Guatemalan foreign ministry’s computer network. The Central American country notably maintains diplomatic relations with Taipei instead of Beijing.

• To mark 7 years of diplomatic relations, as well as to provide a contrast with Trump’s 10% universal tariff proposal, the Chinese embassy in the Dominican Republic hosted a commercial event that featured two new major business cooperation agreements on coffee beans and minerals. (CGTN)

• While visiting the PRC, the Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines signed an MOU on bilateral geological and mining cooperation. Meanwhile, Lyu Weihong, the Deputy Minister of China’s General Customs Administration, traveled to Havana to discuss “training and administrative assistance in customs matters” with the Cuban Prime Minister.

• Ecuador’s trade ministry signed a new protocol with China’s customs ministry that will allow Ecuadorian companies to apply to sell dairy products, especially yogurt and cheese, in China.

Taiwan

• The St. Kitts Minister of State, Senator Isalean Philip, traveled to Taiwan to learn about ways to improve human health and social services in the Caribbean nation.

• The Taiwanese foreign minister said that he would welcome the possible re-establishment of relations with Honduras if the country’s next president chooses to do so.

• The mayor of Ciudad Juarez attended an event hosted by Taiwanese businessmen and the head of Taipei’s economic and cultural office in Mexico on foreign investment in the city.

• Taiwan’s government launched a new semiconductor training program for Guatemalan students.

• Haiti’s environment minister, Moïse Fils Jean Pierre, met with Taiwan’s ambassador to the country to review the “prospects for technical and financial partnerships to strengthen the Ministry's institutional capacity through the implementation of key [environmental and climate] projects.”

Society and culture

• The University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill campus in Barbados, established a new research center focused on climate change in cooperation with a Chinese university and a $20,000 donation from the PRC embassy.

Analysis and Opinion

• The Diplomat published an op-ed by Evan Ellis on how the “next few months will bring a series of high-profile multilateral engagements between China and Latin American countries, as Beijing seeks to capitalize on discontent with Trump.”

• An investigation from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) found that while a Chinese secret police agency in Ecuador claimed to close its doors in May 2024, the organization has reportedly continued its espionage and surveillance operations in Quito.

• Arguing in Dialogo Americas that “China has significantly strengthened its penetration in the Caribbean,” Sabina Nicholls suggests that “China’s presence in the Caribbean is part of a long-term strategy, where the economy is only the first phase of a broader model of domination.” Fox News published a similar story that relied heavily on Rear Admiral Peter Brown’s (ret.) comments.

• Leland Lazarus and Wazim Mowla were quoted in a Politico piece on China’s presence in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, Leland was interviewed on China-South America relations for ABC.

• Writing in The Hill, Arturo McFields suggests that the Manzanillo port “expansion represents a double threat to Mexico’s relationship with the U.S., because it would increase trade with China and open the door for greater fentanyl-related chemicals coming from Beijing.

• Chauncey Jung argues for The Diplomat that “Canada and China have vastly different approaches to major global issues, and these differences will not disappear. As a recent victim of Chinese arbitrary trade practices, Canada should not see China as a reliable trading partner despite facing difficulties with the United States.”

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Today’s edition covers April 7 to April 20

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• Guyana’s Foreign Ministry rebuked China’s Chargé d’Affaires, Huang Rui, after he offered that Guyana and Venezuela should resolve Caracas’ aggression against Guyana through “friendly consultations and negotiations.” He also noted that Beijing “never intervenes in the internal affairs of other countries.” In response, the Guyanese foreign ministry said that China “needs to be principled in its position to respect Guyana's territorial integrity and not to appease Nicolas Maduro's serial violation of international law.”

  • China is among the largest investors in Guyana at the moment, including in the country’s booming oil sector. That said, these tensions are a long time coming, as China has long sought to maintain its deep ties with Caracas at the same time as building its relationship with Georgetown, and it has recently been frustrated by Washington’s insistence on competing with Beijing in the Caribbean nation.

• A Chinese delegation led by Qu Yuhui (the Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Director-General for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs) attended the CELAC summit in Honduras and met with at least 15 delegations1 on the sidelines to prepare for the China-CELAC ministerial in the PRC on May 13. President Xi also sent a message of congratulations to the gathering, noting that a “century-old transformation that is accelerating” with the Global South "growing strongly.” (TeleSur) Later, Colombian President Petro (who took over CELAC’s President Pro Tempore role) talked over potential deliverables from the upcoming China-CELAC summit with the Chinese ambassador.

  • China’s Special Representative for Latin America, Qiu Xiaoqi, also traveled to Honduras, meeting with the old CELAC host, Honduras, and new host, Colombia. Later, he traveled to the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.

  • Altogether, these developments show how China is building on over a decade of diplomatic work to shrewdly take advantage of the discontent fostered by the Trump Administration’s aggressive policy towards the region. May’s China-CELAC ministerial should be closely watched for new initiatives or projects that could further diversify the region away from the United States.

• U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, as well as fees on Chinese-built ships, are concerning business and government leaders in the Caribbean. A senior Bahamas hospitality business leader warned that the move could negatively impact both cruise ship tourism and food imports, since the country is dependent on the United States for 70% of its foodstuffs. Relatedly, a company in Trinidad and Tobago said that it would have to raise prices on feminine products due to tariffs, while an economist in Dominica and the Chamber of Commerce in Antigua and Barbuda cautioned about how tariff-induced price increases will be passed on to consumers. That said, policymakers in other countries like Jamaica said that they do not expect any negative repercussions from U.S. trade actions, at least for now.

  • The U.S. Trade Representative recently announced its plan to charge a fee on shipping fleets that own Chinese ships. However, after successful Caribbean lobbying, the policy will exempt owners of vessels servicing the Caribbean and U.S. territories. Still, the policy will “levy fees based on net tonnage or each container unloaded” and, along with U.S. tariffs on a variety of goods, could still raise prices for both U.S. and foreign consumers.

• Chinese company Tianji International proposed a $500 million investment for a port in the southern Peruvian city of Tacna. The proposal would improve existing infrastructure to strengthen the region’s logistics. Meanwhile, a delegation from China State Railway Group traveled to Brazil in a bid to restart the “Central Bi-Oceanic Railway Corridor” from Brazil to Peru

  • The Tacna port proposal comes right after the Chinese firm COSCO opened the controversial mega-port at Chancay, which has recently come under scrutiny from Peruvian regulators. Despite the controversy and scrutiny, the Chancay port is currently in operation and would be an essential part of any bi-oceanic trade corridor.

• During a visit to Panama, U.S. Secretary of Defense Hegseth praised the country’s withdrawal from the Belt and Road Initiative and warned that “China will not weaponize [the Panama] canal.” He later claimed that the PRC’s military presence was “too large,” arguing that “Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain.” In response, the Chinese embassy accused the United States of blackmailing Panama.

  • Trump and Hegseth have both tied the administration’s desire to assert more control over the canal to China’s presence in the Central American country. However, the Panamanians have been steadfast in their commitment to retaining sovereign control over the waterway, with President Mulino rejecting Trump’s assertions that he will “reclaim” the canal.

Core Brief

The Shape of China’s LAC Foreign Policy: The Foreign Ministry

Though it’s been a few months since Chinese President Xi last visited Latin America, the region has seen no shortage of visits from Mainland officials. Just in the past two weeks, a special envoy, a senior Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official, and a leader from the State Council (effectively China’s cabinet) traveled to the region.

With all these figures coming and going, what role does China’s foreign ministry play in the PRC’s LAC foreign policy? Who are these leaders, and what do they do? Though the Chinese government will always be a bit of a black box, this article starts a series investigating and mapping the different institutions that shape and implement the PRC’s foreign policy across Latin America and the Caribbean.

China’s Foreign Ministry: A Brief Background

Unlike in other countries, the Chinese foreign ministry is a relatively weak state institution, as it is focused on implementing, rather than designing, China’s foreign policy. A major reason for this is the centralized nature of policy decision-making in the PRC’s party-state regime. Most major foreign policy decisions are decided by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Foreign Affairs Commission, often relegating MOFA to an implementation space.2

At the same time, MOFA’s relatively weak position can also be attributed to its numerous competitors in the foreign policy space: aside from the usual suspects like the commerce ministry and the military, Chinese foreign policy implementation actors include the CCP’s International Liaison Department, numerous provincial and local governments, and the party’s United Front Work Department.

That said, MOFA still plays several important roles in Chinese foreign policy. First, it uniquely runs regular press conferences that communicate the CCP’s thinking on day-to-day foreign policy issues. And like most foreign ministries, MOFA manages the PRC’s embassies and consulates throughout the region, allowing it to take the lead in hosting most meetings in-country and maintaining relationships to government officials and civil society on the ground.

Mapping MOFA’s LAC Policy: Senior Leadership

Given its relatively marginal status in China’s foreign relations, it should be unsurprising that MOFA seems to lack a dedicated Vice or Assistant Minister just for LAC affairs.

That doesn’t mean that those at the top don’t engage with the region; of the seven Vice and Assistant Ministers, Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Chaoxu (马朝旭), head spokesman and Vice Minister Hua Chunying (华春莹), and Assistant Minister and head of the Policy Planning Department Miao Deyu (苗得雨) have taken a particular interest in the region.

In just the past few months, Ma greeted the Brazilian Deputy Foreign Minister, while Hua hosted a group of young Latin American scholars and met with a senior Uruguayan diplomat. Miao seems to have responsibilities for regular engagement with locally stationed foreign diplomats, having just met with the Peruvian, Cuban, and Brazilian ambassadors. That said, LAC is just one geographic priority area of many for these policymakers, so it is unlikely that they are too deeply involved in the day-to-day of LAC foreign policy implementation.

Outside of the Vice and Assistant Foreign Ministers, MOFA also has Special Representatives – according to Baidu, these officials “enjoy the treatment as the highest leader of the government or the organization” on their particular issue area. Since 2015, MOFA has had a Special Representative leading the government’s work on LAC affairs, and since 2021 the role has been filled by retired ambassador to Brazil and Mexico Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪).

With his lengthy experience and relatively high rank in the CCP (he’s been a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference), Qiu is probably the most visible member of the PRC’s foreign policy in the region. Aside from his recent regional visits highlighted above, Qiu attends LAC-related events around the PRC, such as the opening ceremony of the China-Latin America Sustainable Food Innovation Forum and a book launch at the Brazilian embassy.

Mapping MOFA’s LAC Policy: The More Junior Leadership

Much of the day-to-day management of MOFA’s LAC policy in Beijing falls into the hands of former Ambassador to Mexico Zhang Run.3 In his 30-year career, Zhang has almost exclusively focused on LAC policy, having served in Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina as well as three stints in the LAC department. Zhang just returned to the Foreign Ministry a few months ago, but he’s already traveled to Cuba and introduced himself to the LAC diplomatic community in Beijing.

Underneath Zhang, the LAC affairs department has three Deputy Director-Generals: Qu Yuhui, Tang Lingyun, and Sun Yi. None of these officials are senior enough yet to have served as ambassadors in the region, but they all certainly have notable language skills and LAC-related experience: Qu worked as a spokesman in Brazil, Tang served in Barcelona and was an alternate observer at the OAS, and Sun was a counselor at the embassy in Buenos Aires.

It's a bit of a black box on who serves under the Deputy DGs, though prior research has suggested that each of the Deputy DGs manages a couple of divisions. In turn, each of these divisions has 4-6 desk officers working on a particular issue or country. Though today these are fairly junior officials, many of the senior leaders started their careers at the bottom rungs of the LAC affairs department, suggesting that one day they too may work as the lead implementers of MOFA’s LAC agenda.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• Zhang Laiming, the PRC State Council’s Deputy Minister of the Development Research Center, discussed the example of China’s economic modernization in Havana with Cuban government and party leaders.

• Uruguayan defense officials met with Chinese diplomats and executives from the Chinese company Norinco to discuss possible weapons sales to the country.

• The Vice President of Venezuela met with China’s ambassador to review bilateral cooperation on energy, mining, agriculture and advanced technology, as well as special economic zones.

• Canadian Prime Minister Carney named China as the country’s greatest security threat in an election debate, specifically criticizing the PRC’s election interference and aggression in Asia. These comments came after Canada’s Privy Council accused Chinese media of pushing false stories about Carney to influence the election.

• Even though the United States already has significantly fewer embassies in the Caribbean than China, the New York Times reported that the Trump Administration is planning to close the diplomatic outpost in Grenada.

• Beijing congratulated Ecuadorian President Noboa on his re-election, stressing that “under the leadership of Noboa, Ecuador is expected to continue to make significant progress in its economic and social development.”

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• Argentina extended its $5 billion bilateral currency swap with China through 2026 amid its IMF negotiations. It did so despite Washington’s suggestion that it would delay the IMF deal if Buenos Aires continued the agreement with Beijing.

• A couple of companies from Yantai City in Shandong Province discussed new “zero-carbon” investments and partnerships with Barbadian schools and businesses at an event hosted by the Association of Barbados-China Friendship (ABCF). The discussions came as China donated another 30 electric buses to the island nation.

• The head of the Mexican Senate, Gerardo Fernández Noroña, met with the PRC embassy’s commercial section head to discuss continued commercial ties in the midst of Washington’s increasingly protectionist trade agenda.

• Chile’s Minister of Energy, Diego Pardow, agreed to an MOU on clean energy cooperation with the Director of China’s National Energy Administration, Wang Hongzhi.

• The PRC’s competitor to Uber, Didi, announced a new $170 million expansion in Brazil to deliver food through a platform called 99Food. (People’s Daily)

Trade and Technology

• Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega welcomed Huawei’s regional president for Latin America to discuss new bilateral cooperation projects, including telecommunications modernization.

• In response to the U.S.-China trade war, Chinese oil refiners’ purchases of Canadian crude have soared to more than 7 million barrels a month.

• Bolivia officially started exporting chia seeds to China, opening a new market to a growing local industry.

• After an initial investigation, Chile froze a joint astronomical project in Antofagasta between the Catholic University of the North and China’s National Astronomical Observatory of China. The project had previously drawn concerns from the United States, and in response, the PRC embassy said that it trusts Chile will hold an “independent position” on the project.

Taiwan

• To reduce exposure to the Trump Administration’s tariffs, Taiwanese firms like Foxconn-subsidiary FIH Mobile and auto parts manufacturer Hiroca Holdings are looking to shift production to Mexico.

• Taiwan’s International Cooperation and Development Fund signed an agreement with St. Kitts and Nevis for a $13 million loan that will support water security and resilience at the Basseterre Desalination Plant.

• President Peña said that Taiwan will donate four helicopters to Paraguay’s military later this summer.

• The ROC donated four drug testing kits to the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force to enhance “the RSLPF’s capacity to respond to drug-related offences.”

• The St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly passed a resolution endorsing Taiwan’s engagement in international organizations, while the country’s government issued a statement condemning China’s growing aggression in the Taiwan Strait.

Society and culture

• Costa Rica granted asylum to 16 Chinese nationals who had originally been seeking asylum in the United States, marking one of the first times that the Central American country has taken such steps.

• The Colombian government eliminated visa requirements for PRC citizens in a bid to boost tourism to the country.

Analysis and Opinion

• Chatham House published a podcast featuring Yu Jie, Evan Ellis, and Bruno Binetti on “the growing battle for influence in Latin America between the US and China.”

• The Financial Times published a piece on how Brazilian farmers are poised to benefit from the U.S.-China trade war as the PRC switches its soy and beef imports from the United States to the South American country. Meanwhile, the New York Times had a piece of analysis on how a U.S. critical minerals mine in Brazil is reliant on Chinese mineral processing.

• The China-Global South Project recently published two notable articles: one by Eric Olander on China’s and Brazil’s ramped-up engagement, and another by Alonso Illueca on “how Panama is now a frontline in the U.S.-China strategic competition.”

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers March 25 to April 6

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The Top 5 Stories:

• The Trump Administration’s Special Envoy for Latin America (and former IDB President) Mauricio Claver Carone is reportedly pressuring Argentina to end its currency swap arrangement with China as a precondition to Buenos Aires receiving a new IMF credit line.

  • Although Milei is one of Trump’s staunchest supporters, it is unclear whether Argentina could afford to end its swap arrangement. And while Milei has continued Argentina’s deep relations with China in the first year of his administration, a previously planned trip to Beijing (which in turn might infuriate Washington) appears to have been at best postponed and at worst scrapped.

• China was a constant topic of conversation during Secretary of State Rubio’s trip to the Caribbean. After Guyana’s president promised “different and preferential treatment” for the United States, China’s embassy expressed dissatisfaction with Washington’s ties to Georgetown. In Suriname, Rubio also complained about the quality of Chinese highway construction work in Guyana, though it appears that the road in question was actually built by local contractors.

  • During the visit, Guyana’s government also joined its neighbors (including Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Vincent) in expressing concerns about a U.S. proposal to charge a fee on any Chinese-built ship visiting U.S. ports. Reportedly, since many vessels operating in the Caribbean are Chinese-built and need to stopover in the U.S. as part of their trade routes, USTR’s proposal could disproportionately hurt the Caribbean.

• After Trump threatened to impose a 25% tariff on any country that imports Venezuelan oil, Chinese imports of Venezuelan petroleum skyrocketed to the highest level in almost two years, and China’s foreign ministry condemned the sanctions. The PRC also expressed its support by having its ambassador meet with the South American country’s deputy foreign minister.

  • Last year, China was Venezuela’s largest oil customer, purchasing more than 500,000 barrels of crude and fuel per day. This development shows how Sino-Venezuelan ties are unlikely to be severely impacted by U.S. sanctions.

• China’s commerce ministry paused a multi-billion dollar deal that would have handed over control of dozens of ports, including two near the Panama Canal, from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison to a consortium led by U.S. firm Blackrock. Days later, Panama’s comptroller general accused CK Hutchinson of irregularities and breaches of contract.

  • President Trump has been using Chinese companies’ presence near the canal as a rationale to threaten to take back the waterway since last year. As a result, in early March, a consortium led by U.S. asset management firm Blackrock signed a $23 billion deal with CK Hutchison Holdings to purchase dozens of ports worldwide.

• The St. Lucia-China Friendship Association celebrated its 20^th anniversary. Meanwhile, Paraguayan businessmen and officials virtually discussed economic cooperation with Chinese academics for the fifth “China-Paraguay Seminar.” (CGTN)

  • While both countries lack formal ties with Beijing, civil society organizations and events like these continue to foster low-level ties with the PRC.

Core Brief

The Curious Case of St. Lucia’s Taiwan Ties

This week, the St. Lucia-China Friendship Association celebrated its 20th anniversary with a small gala and a promise by its leaders to move to a new generation in the hopes of deepening ties with the PRC.

Aside from possibly Belize, St. Lucia appears to be unique among Taiwan’s Caribbean diplomatic partners1 in having a friendship organization with the mainland — if other countries in the region have similar organizations, they are much less public and prolific in their meetings.2 There could be a number of reasons for this, but more likely than not it reflects St. Lucia’s unique history with Taiwan and the PRC.

St. Lucia’s Complicated PRC and ROC Ties

Initially, Taiwan and St. Lucia established diplomatic relations in 1984, and for the subsequent 13 years, Taiwan provided development assistance to St. Lucia, including by “propagating new strains of fruits and vegetables and introducing (new) agricultural techniques.”

Yet like many countries, St. Lucia switched relations from the ROC to the PRC in the 20^th century under left-leaning leaders. When the left-leaning Labour Party came to power in 1997, St. Lucia established official ties with Beijing in a bid to improve the local economy and further economic development.

Originally, the country sought to maintain commercial ties with Taiwan, possibly through an unofficial trade office. But in the end, the Taiwanese ambassador reportedly refused any further commercial engagement and withdrew his country’s presence from the island.

Re-connecting with Taipei

Despite St. Lucia’s seeming alignment with the One China Principle, when St. Lucia’s right-leaning United Workers Party returned to power in 2006, the prime minister who had established diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1984, John Compton, re-offered formal ties with Taipei. Yet in a bid for compromise, he hoped to maintain relations with Beijing while establishing formal ties to the ROC.

In a reversal of the events of 1997, Beijing’s foreign ministry expressed its “indignation and opposition” to a country trying to break the One China Principle by holding diplomatic relations with both Taiwan and the PRC. It subsequently withdrew all formal links with the Caribbean country. Despite the Labour Party returning to government in 2011 and 2021, St. Lucia has since remained a steadfast diplomatic partner to Taiwan.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warned that both China and India were likely to interfere in the country’s upcoming elections, which the PRC’s foreign ministry denied.

• Honduran businessmen and the head of the country’s legislature met with a business delegation from Jiangsu to discuss possible investments and “strengthening of parliamentary relations.”

• Qiu Xiaoqi, China’s Special Representative for Latin American Affairs, will travel to Costa Rica in the coming days to meet with the President of the Legislative Assembly, Rodrigo Arias.

• The Vice President of the PRC National People’s Congress Standing Committee traveled to Colombia to discuss commercial, cultural, and economic ties, as well as legislative exchanges.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC) officially started construction on the $80 million “El Hato” solar plant in Nicaragua.

• A Chilean parliamentary delegation traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen and signed an MOU on clean energy cooperation with the PRC’s National Energy Administration.

Trade and Technology

• Though Chinese investments in Mexico may be cooling at the moment, the head of the Campache port discussed trade cooperation with his counterpart at the Port of Guangzhou. That said, Mexico placed new tariffs on Chinese steel nails at the beginning of April.

• At the same time that Prime Minister Carney said that China does not share Canada’s values on trade, Beijing’s ambassador suggested that his country was interested in increasing bilateral trade.

• Uruguay’s Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) inaugurated a new cooperation initiative on nano-pharmaceuticals, nanotechnological biosensors, and implantable biomaterials.

• A Brazilian congressional delegation met with officials from the CCP’s International Department, business leaders from Sinomach Corporation, and researchers at China Agriculture University to discuss agricultural mechanization and bio-input production.

Taiwan

• The Taiwan Technical Mission and Belize’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed a grant agreement to promote “women’s economic empowerment in the Adjacency Zone.”

• Taiwan’s Simply Help Foundation donated 1,000 pairs of shoes to St. Lucia’s Ministry for Equity, Social Justice, and Empowerment.

• Despite lacking diplomatic relations, the Honduran foreign minister said his country was looking to regain access to Taiwan’s market for shrimp exports. However, several days later, the foreign minister denied that his government had made contact with Taipei.

• The ROC embassy in St. Kitts donated unspecified “medical equipment and supplies” to the country’s Joseph N. France General Hospital (JNF).

• Paraguay’s president indirectly accused China of launching cyberattacks on the small South American country, noting that the United States has helped the country respond.

Society and culture

• China’s foreign ministry donated about $150,000 to renovate four soccer fields in Honduras. The two countries also signed an MOU on dengue control and other agreements on new ambulances and agricultural equipment.

• Cuba and China are planning to launch a joint tertiary education program with the University of International Studies of Hebei.

• The Argentine-Chinese Cultural Association (ACCA) and the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Southwest University of Science and Technology (SWUST) signed an MOU to promote and strengthen bilateral cultural exchange.

• A delegation from Shanghai discussed “heritage protection of historic urban constructions” with Chilean public works and agriculture officials, while a delegation from the Chinese Red Cross signed an MOU with its Chilean counterpart.

Analysis and Opinion

• Noting that “a decisive majority of internationally recognized sovereign states accept China’s fiction that Taiwan is a part of its territory,” Sasha Chhabra argues for GTI that “Taiwan has relied too much on ‘diplomatic allies’” (including those in the Caribbean) in its diplomacy.

• Per CSIS, Evan Ellis provided testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on “PRC influence in the Western Hemisphere and its impact on Taiwan’s allies in the region.”

• Laura Lesmes Diaz argues in El Tiempo that Colombia must diversify its exports away from the United States to China, but that Bogota needs “an intelligent strategy and quintupling its effort if it wants to boost China as a market.”

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers March 11 to March 24

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The Top 6 Stories:

• Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said that the Trump Administration’s plan to charge fees on shipping fleets that include Chinese-built or flagged vessels could particularly hurt Caribbean hydrocarbon-exporting countries like Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago. However, Bahamian business officials have suggested that their country could act as an intermediary for companies looking to avoid the fees.

  • Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to visit Jamaica, Suriname, and Guyana at the end of March. These countries’ leaders plan to raise the issue of fees on Chinese ships during the visit.

  • The U.S. Trade Representative announced the Section 301 investigation into Chinese shipping and possible fees on PRC-built vessels in late February.

• The Trump Administration announced a new 25% tariff on any country that imports oil from Venezuela, which will be effective on April 2. China is currently the largest importer of Venezuelan oil (68% of Venezuelan exports in 2023), so the tariff would likely largely target the PRC.

  • Other countries, including the United States, Spain, Cuba, and Singapore also purchase Venezuelan oil, but at a much smaller percentage.

  • Washington has already placed a 20% tariff on Chinese exports, and is likely to at least double that with the “reciprocal tariffs” planned for April 2. Beijing might prefer a roughly 40% cumulative tariff over a 65% one, but given the Trump Administration’s inclination to unpredictably impose tariffs on its trading partners, this tariff probably won’t end Venezuelan oil exports to China.

• Chile’s foreign ministry said that it is reviewing the agreement between the Chinese government and the private Catholic University of the North for access to the Ventarrones Astronomical Park. The review comes in part because Washington’s embassy “has been clear for some time in expressing its concern” about the cooperation and its possible military applications.

  • The Chinese-Chilean Ventarrones cooperation is one of many space cooperation projects that have drawn DC-based analysts’ concern. However, the level of cooperation at Ventarrones pales in comparison to the Espacio Lejano Station in Argentina, which has been directly administered by the China National Space Administration for years now. If U.S. pressure increases in the region, this could be the next project to cause a raucous.

• Chinese officials have reportedly started to push back against the Black Rock-CK Hutchison (CKH) Holdings port deal that included two key Panamanian ports. A Beijing-affiliated newspaper article critical of the deal was republished by Hong Kong’s government, while the Wall Street Journal reported that President Xi was “angered” by the transaction. Still, the Economist argued that China probably won’t block the deal.

  • Amid this kerfuffle, the deputy head of the CCP’s International Department, Ma Hui, led a delegation to Panama to meet with local political party leaders. (Xinhua)

  • President Trump has been using Chinese companies’ presence near the canal as a rationale to threaten to take back the waterway since last year. However, while this deal would ideally mollify his administration’s greatest concerns, shortly after the deal was announced, Trump still insisted that his administration planned to “reclaim” the canal.

• The PRC’s Ministry of Commerce delayed its approval of EV firm BYD’s potential new plant in Mexico due to concerns that the facility’s proximity to the United States could allow North American companies access to the firm’s advanced technology and know-how.

  • In response, Mexican President Sheinbaum said that the investment had only been proposed and had never been formalized. Yet this comes as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Mexico suggested Chinese investment in the country has slowed because of trade uncertainty from the United States.

• Just weeks after Ecuador had granted Sinopetrol (and a Canadian firm) the exploitation rights at one of the country’s largest oil fields (Sacha), the Ministry of Energy canceled the company’s contract over Sinopetrol reportedly not paying the $1.5 billion deposit on time. In response, the Chinese embassy called for the Ecuadorians to “provide a fair, equitable, transparent and non-discriminatory commercial environment for foreign companies, including Chinese companies.”

  • Sacha is Ecuador’s most productive oil field, producing 75,000 barrels per day (or 15% of Ecuador’s output). Earlier this month, an Ecuadorian trade union had criticized the government’s decision to let Chinese and Canadian firms take over the Sacha oil field.

Core Brief

Taking stock of the Trump Team’s China-LAC obsession

It’s been just over two months into the second Trump Administration, and from tariffs to Twitter (X) feuds, the administration’s foreign policy strategy and priorities are coming into focus.

Last summer, I wrote about how a second Trump term could influence China-LAC ties. Specifically, I highlighted that the new administration’s blueprint, called Project 2025, highlighted three areas of concern, namely: “disrupting Chinese fentanyl flows through Mexico, near-shoring manufacturing away from the PRC, and combating the regional ‘external pressure’ and ‘security threats’ from the PRC (such as through Beijing’s support for countries like Venezuela and Cuba).”

Though “near-shoring” has mostly gotten short shrift, so far the campaign’s priorities appear to more or less be the administration’s strategy. But whether it’ll curtail China’s role in the region remains to be seen.

“External pressure” and “security threats”

Even before Trump took the oath of office, he had been complaining about Chinese influence at the Panama Canal. In just two months, this has resulted in threats to invade Panama, Secretary Rubio’s first foreign trip being to Panama, an eventual deal for Panama to withdraw from the BRI, and the sale of two Chinese ports. Yet these have still not seemed to mollify Trump himself.

Other external threats highlighted by the administration so far include: China’s intelligence presence in Cuba, the possible political pressure created by Chinese investments, and Huawei’s cybersecurity threat to Costa Rica.

Some of these have long been flagged by the DC-based security community, while others are new concerns. Altogether, if the administration can plausibly claim that China is pressuring a LAC country or creating a security threat for the United States, it seems that Trump’s team is going to try to eliminate that “threat.”

Fentanyl flows

One of Trump’s first actions after his inauguration was announcing new tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China for their supposed role in fentanyl trafficking to the United States. Though the 25% tariffs on the North American neighbors were paused, a 20% tariff on PRC exports was put into effect.

What’s missing? Any substantial negotiations, it seems. Canada and Mexico have largely re-packaged previous commitments to try to push off the new administration’s complaints. And while the Biden Administration set up some talks with the Chinese over fentanyl precursors, which did appear to have some limited results, the PRC and Trump’s team haven’t been interested in the same.

The near-shoring conundrum

Rather than taking a “near-shoring” approach to trade decoupling with China, the administration seems to be following an “America-shoring” policy. Though Trump’s team has been putting tariff after tariff on Chinese exports, (so far) they don’t seem interested in actively redirecting that trade to the U.S.’s southern neighbors. No FTA negotiations have been announced, nor have any grand trade or investment initiatives like the Americas Partnership been proposed. Instead, the administration is threatening tariffs on its closest trade partners through a “reciprocal tariff” proposal and a million-dollar fee on any goods shipped on Chinese ships, regardless of the country of origin.

What’s more, the previous administration’s efforts to near-shore some industries, such as semiconductors, to LAC might be on the chopping block. Take, for example, the CHIPS Act. The law provided new funds for Washington’s regional partners like Costa Rica and Mexico to develop their semiconductor industries. But with Trump’s aspirations to repeal the law, the financial incentives for these projects are probably at risk.

What’s next?

The past few weeks have seen quite a few LAC countries pull back from engagement with China. The cancellation of Sinopetrol’s lease of Ecuador’s largest oil bloc1 to an investigation into space cooperation in Chile, to Mexico floating new trade barriers on Chinese exporters all indicate that the region is preparing for yet more Trump Administration complaints about Chinese “external interference.”

While some of these actions might be independent of the current White House’s concerns, they certainly will help feed into Washington’s narrative about the dangers of engagement with the PRC. Moreover, they show that the region is preparing for more complaints and coercion from the next four years of this administration.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• After traveling to Panama (see above), the Deputy Head of the CCP’s international department visited Brazil and met with local officials, including Vice President of the Senate and ruling Workers Party member Humberto Costa. (CGTN)

• Chinese Premier Li Qiang sent a message of congratulations to Stuart Young on assuming the premiership in Trinidad and Tobago. (China Daily)

• Even as Ottawa has sought to reduce tensions with Beijing, Canada’s foreign minister revealed that the PRC had recently executed four Canadian citizens over drug offenses.

• The PRC’s Special Representative for Latin American Affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, discussed “deepening practical cooperation in various sectors” with Venezuela’s ambassador. (VTV)

• A new scandal is brewing in Argentina related to the National Institute of Tourism Promotion (INPROTUR) paying local firm Puken Media S.A. $200,000 for promoting Argentina’s tourism industry on Chinese social media like Weibo and WeChat.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• 163 Chinese workers who had been building a BYD plant were rescued by Brazilian authorities. The plant’s construction was stopped several months ago over concerns about the workers’ slavery-like conditions. Still, BYD is planning to build two new research centers in the country.

• China will donate a $2.4 million mobile wastewater treatment plant to the island of Roatán in Honduras, with the project’s financing, construction, and technical assistance managed by Chinese firms.

• Nicaragua’s government both announced that CCCC had started construction on a $68 million, 67MW solar project in Darío and that Min Fu Steel’s new $50 million steel recycling plant would begin operations this summer. The plant will be the largest in Central America.

• The Venezuelan transportation ministry signed a “strategic alliance” agreement with a Chinese firm to construct, install, and maintain steel bridges across the country.

Trade and Technology

• China’s customs administration and Bolivia’s land ministry signed a phytosanitary protocol to facilitate sorghum exports without volume limits.

• The Argentine and Chinese customs offices agreed to new health protocols that would re-permit for poultry exports from the South American country to the PRC.

• Venezuela’s Minister of Agriculture, Julio León Heredi, signed an agreement with China to formalize a “sugar strategic alliance” and to promote sustainable development in the agriculture sector.

• China’s ambassador to Dominica announced that a Chinese firm plans to open a “Distribution Center of Chinese Goods in Dominica” that will supply local retailers.

• The Peruvian government launched yet another anti-dumping investigation into Chinese exports, this time into hot-rolled carbon steel tubes.

Taiwan

• The St. Kitts and Nevis foreign minister reaffirmed his country’s commitment to Taiwan during a trip to the country. He also reviewed possible investment opportunities in meetings with Taiwan’s president, foreign minister, and other officials.

• Taiwan’s foreign ministry congratulated Belizean Prime Minister Briceno on re-election and committed to deepening ties with Briceno’s government. Belize is expected to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan under a continued People's United Party (PUP)-led government.

• A delegation from the ROC’s National Security Bureau led a training program with its Guatemalan security and defense counterparts. Notably, this marked the first time that the Taiwanese intelligence service Special Service Command Center participated in this program.

• Taiwan and St. Vincent launched a new $1.16 million, two-year agriculture training project for young farmers, while the TX Foundation donated $110,000 in educational supplies, and the Simply Help Foundation offered $66,000 in goods to the social development ministry. At the same time, a Taiwanese medical mission recently started its work in the country.

• A delivery of 20 Taiwanese electric buses just arrived in Paraguay. The vehicles are part of a broader donation from Taiwan.

Society and culture

• The Francisco Morazán National Pedagogical University (UPNFM) of Honduras and the Zhejiang University of International Studies (ZISU) signed an MOU to establish the country’s first Confucius Institute. (CGTN)

• The Chinese government donated four small planes to Bolivia that can seat about 50-60 passengers each to facilitate flights in the interior of the country.

Analysis and Opinion

• A new report from the Atlantic Council by William Piekos on how China encourages Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to end their recognition of Taipei argues that “the key to Beijing’s success lies in the use of positive economic inducements, buttressed by the promise of economic growth and investment. While additional variables are at play—including “subversive carrots,” coercion, and personal ties—recent switches have been accompanied by lavish promises of aid, investment, and trade.”

• The New York Times published a piece by Keith Bradsher on how Chinese officials are increasingly worried that “Washington’s pressure could force Mexico to close its market to Chinese goods in exchange for a reprieve from American tariffs.”

• Arendse Huld wrote for China Briefing about how Sino-Canadian relations could evolve under either a Carney or Poilievre government.

• The Diplomat published a piece by Evan Ellis on the current state of Sino-Mexican ties amid the tensions created by U.S. tariffs.

• Chinese Ambassador to Jamaica Chen Daojiang wrote an op-ed for the Jamaica Observer about how “China is willing to further strengthen exchanges of experience in state governance with Caribbean countries” in the context of the recent CARICOM summit.

• Ewan Palmer wrote about how “China's rising influence in the Caribbean and Latin America in recent years has raised concerns about its potential political and economic impact on Florida” for Newsweek.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers February 24 to March 10.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• A consortium led by U.S. asset management firm Blackrock signed a $23 billion deal with CK Hutchison Holding to purchase dozens of ports worldwide, including two ports near the Panama Canal that had fueled U.S.-Panama tensions in recent months.1 CSIS published a feature on the potential impact of the deal. In response to the agreement, a Chinese spokesman simply said “China supports Panama's sovereignty over the canal and is committed to maintaining the status of the canal as a permanently neutral international waterway.”

  • The news came a few days after Panama’s chief prosecutor had asked the country’s Supreme Court to annul Hutchinson’s port concessions.

  • President Trump has been using Chinese companies’ presence near the canal as a rationale to threaten to take back the waterway since last year. However, while this deal would ideally mollify his administration’s greatest concerns, shortly after the deal was announced Trump still insisted that his administration’s plan was to “reclaim” the canal.

• In the midst of President Trump’s on-again off-again trade war against Mexico, Canada, and China, the PRC is also separately facing trade tensions with Washington’s neighbors. Recently, China retaliated against Canada’s tariffs from last fall on Chinese EVs and steel with new duties on agriculture products. More specifically, China put a 100% tariff on Canadian rapeseed oil, oil cakes, and peas, while it put a 25% levy on aquatic products and pork. At the same time, Mexican President Sheinbaum said that her government would “review” its tariff rates on Chinese goods, which could lead to new duties on PRC imports.

  • These developments show how the U.S.’s protectionist turn is having cascading effects on international trade; as Washington puts new tariffs on both its friends and competitors, its actions also are encouraging those countries to raise their trade barriers.

  • China is a relatively minor export destination for both Canada and Mexico; in 2023, it made up 5% of Canada’s exports and 2.5% of Mexico’s exports. Because of this, Chinese reciprocal tariffs would likely have relatively minor effects compared to U.S. tariffs on these countries. That said, Chinese exports to these countries are still a notable source of goods, with 11% for Canada and nearly 20% for Mexico in 2023.

• The Chinese Ministry of Commerce suspended beef imports from six companies from Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay without explanation. However, the ministry recently launched an investigation into an oversupply of beef from South America that had resulted in major losses for Chinese companies.

  • In the days before the meeting and possibly signaling a desire to resolve the issue, Chinese Agriculture Minister Han Jun met with his Uruguayan counterpart Alfredo Fratti in Montevideo to expand trade and technology cooperation. Han was in town to attend President Orsi’s inauguration. (Xinhua)

  • Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay made up more than 65% of China’s frozen beef imports in 2023, so a substantial reduction in their beef trade with China could significantly help Chinese beef production (while also significantly hurting those countries’ agriculture exports).

• Hinting potential rockiness in formal diplomatic relations, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said in a radio show that Taiwan’s diplomatic relations with Haiti required “extra attention”, though he suggested that cooperation with Washington could improve the situation.

  • Haiti uniquely is the only one of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners that has a formal trade office in Beijing and a PRC office in its capital. Because Haiti is frequently the subject of UN Security Council resolutions that are subject to China’s veto, there have historically been some suggestions that the country is especially vulnerable to PRC coercion.

• Honduras and China are negotiating the final round of their Free Trade Agreement. The final stage is centered on the two sides identifying the economic sectors that they will continue to protect to reduce the negative impacts of the agreement. The Honduran vice foreign minister also suggested that these FTA negotiations had prompted the United States to start talks on modernizing its trade agreement with Honduras.

  • The two countries established ties in 2023 and started FTA negotiations shortly thereafter. The agreement could be especially important for Honduras, as some of the country’s key exports (namely shrimp and coffee) suffered after losing market share in Taiwan’s market.

  • Currently, China has five FTAs in the Western Hemisphere (Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, and Nicaragua).

Core Brief

Eliminating the U.S. foreign policy alphabet soup enables abusive Chinese business practices

Just last month, Bolivia’s lower house of Congress continued to refuse to approve a questionable set of lithium contracts with Chinese (and Russian) companies. Because of Bolivia’s close political ties with China, this decision doesn’t reflect a tilt away from China or some grand political scheme. Rather, it provides an example of how Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) governments have the agency and ability to resist unfair contracts and business practices.

Although Bolivia might be a surprising example of how to protect a country’s interests from possibly unfair business practices, it is not alone in standing up for itself. After it came to light that Jinjiang Construction was abusing its workers, Brazil’s Public Labor Prosecutor forced the contractor to halt work on a new BYD electric vehicle plant. Similarly, prosecutors in Ecuador and Peru have been hard at work over a series of corruption cases implicating Chinese firms. Just this week, a notable Chilean legislator was investigated for inappropriate business links with a couple of Chinese businessmen.

This is to say that Chinese business abuses are a serious issue in the region, but Latin American and Caribbean countries have the agency and interests to protect themselves from labor, environmental, and corruption law violations. While they are far from perfect, regional governments have the institutions and ability to enforce their laws and protect their citizens.

So at a moment when Washington is laser-focused on the negative repercussions of Chinese business practices in the Western Hemisphere, the Trump Administration’s decision to defund key U.S. institutions like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) ultimately hurts these efforts.

Both USAID and NED have long supported training and workshops for anti-corruption and good business practices. Eliminating these agencies simply makes it easier for all firms, including Chinese companies, to get away with business abuses.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• The head of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies, Karol Cariola, was accused of inappropriate business links with multiple Chinese businessmen, including Emilio Yang. The Chilean media has speculated that Yang may have acted on behalf of the Chinese government. In response, the Chinese embassy denied that Yang was acting as an intermediary on behalf of the PRC government.

• Honduras hosted a China-CELAC financial cooperation workshop in late February, with representatives from all 33 member states reportedly in attendance.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• A new $546 million Chinese-financed Mutún steel plant was inaugurated in Bolivia on February 24. The plant is expected to produce up to 200,000 tons of steel annually

• The Cuban city of Cotorro launched a new 22MW solar project that was built with Chinese support. Similarly, Villa Clara will inaugurate its 22MW solar plant built with Chinese-manufactured solar panels in the coming days.

• China donated 430 solar lamps to Barbados. The Deputy Prime Minister said that these would primarily be used to illuminate residential communities.

• Nicaraguan government officials and representatives from Chinese firm CCCC virtually signed a $69 million financing agreement for the new 55MW El Barro wind farm project.

  • Meanwhile, supposedly commemorating International Women’s Day, Nicaragua delivered 500 new Chinese buses to upgrade the country’s public transportation system. (Telesur)

• A group of Chinese investors led by China Kingstone Mining Holdings plans to purchase 700 hectares of mining concessions largely focused on gold extraction in Los Rios in Chile.

Trade and Technology

• Ecuadorian trade union National Association of Energy and Oil Workers (ANTEP) criticized the government’s decision to let Chinese and Canadian firms take over the Sacha oil field.

• China’s BIOMA and Argentina’s INTA extended their five-year agreement on knowledge exchange and technology transfer for biogas production.

Taiwan

• Canada and Taiwan signed a Science, Technology, and Innovation Agreement (STIA) and held the first meeting of the bilateral Joint Committee on Science and Technology. Conversations focused on AI, ICT, and net-zero technology.

• In an effort to enhance cooperation with Belize, Taiwan both invited Belizean healthcare professionals to an intensive training course in Asia and financially supported a vanilla cultivation training course for women.

• A Taiwanese business delegation of 13 companies traveled to Guatemala, resulting in an agreement to buy 720,000kg of Guatemalan coffee (a 50% increase from last year).

• A former Japanese Ambassador to Paraguay confirmed that China tried to condition a supply of COVID-19 vaccines on flipping recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

• A joint U.S.-Taiwan medical mission is delivering specialized medical services across St. Lucia, while the local Taiwan Technical Mission (TTM) gave a training on seedless watermelon cultivation.

Society and culture

• The University of the West Indies (UWI) in Jamaica, China Agricultural University (CAU), and the Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF) signed an MOU to reopen the university’s Confucius Institute.

• El Salvador’s vice president hosted China Group Group’s (CMG) Director-General for Latin America, Zhu Boying. The two sides discussed enhancing El Salvador’s image through CMG and possibly making the country a regional headquarters for the company.

• The International Communications Group of China (CICG) held a cooperation forum earlier this March at Mexico City’s Intercontinental University (UIC), with discussions largely focusing on education and culture but also touching on trade and technology.

• Representative of how Chinese-Caribbean relations are also promoted by local governments, Hunan province held a tourism promotion in event “to consolidate Hunan as a world-class tourist destination and strengthen the relationship with the Dominican Republic.”

• The President of the Chinese Academy of Tourism met with Cuba’s ambassador to Beijing to discuss the benefits of tourism to the country, including safety and eco-tourism.

Analysis and Opinion

• Loop News ran a piece on how China’s 2025 planned foreign policy changes might affect the Caribbean, including increased visa-free access and more free trade policies.

• Evan Ellis argues in The Diplomat that the Trump “administration’s approach to competition with China, and to global engagement more broadly, could unwittingly facilitate the extension of Beijing’s influence” in Latin America.

• Margaret Myers delivered testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on U.S. competition with China in the Western Hemisphere, stating that she is “concerned about the progress that China—and Russia, for that matter—has made toward dismantling U.S. ties in the region, whether through targeted messaging campaigns, political alliances, or because of its now-extensive economic footprint in the hemisphere.”

• The National Interest published an op-ed by James Holmes on how Chinese naval expansion in to the Caribbean, especially in Venezuela or Cuba, could threaten the United States’ security.

• Julieta Pelcastre wrote about China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC)’s corrupt business practices and how its upcoming projects in Honduras may harm the Central American country in Dialogo Americas.

• Dialogue Earth published an article by Rodrigo Rodríguez on how Colombia is juggling relations between the United States and China as it prepares to join the Belt and Road Initiative.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers February 10 to February 23.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• China Machinery Engineering Corporation was criminally reported for illegal labor conditions on an electricity infrastructure project in Uruguay. The company currently employs 200 Uruguayans and 500 foreigners (mostly Ecuadorians and Chinese), and it is accused of creating dangerous working conditions, such as crowded living conditions and a lack of drinking water.

  • Questions of labor conditions under Chinese companies have long been an issue in the region, but a recent case in Brazil when the government forced the closure of a BYD factory site after the Chinese contractor was accused of creating slavery-like working conditions has raised the salience of the problem.

• Although a key committee advanced two new Russian and Chinese lithium investments in Bolivia, ultimately the Andean country’s lower house of congress refused to approve the contracts with the Chinese CBC consortium and Russian firm Uranium One. Protests had also broken out over the potential investments.

  • Bolivia’s congress initially rejected the CBC proposal in January over an insufficient amount of documentation on the project. Originally, Bolivia’s state-owned lithium company (YLB) signed a contract with the firm a few months earlier.

• Owing to the recent opening of the Port of Chancay in Peru, both Colombia and Ecuador opened new maritime routes to China. The former will connect Shanghai with Buenaventura, while the latter will ship goods from Guayaquil to Shanghai. Both routes will connect through Chancay.

  • At the same time, the General Manager of COSCO shipping (which runs the Port of Chancay) said in a recent interview that his company was consequently looking to invest in a new rail line from Colombia’s interior to Santa Marta. He suggested that the investment would likely be dependent on Colombia’s accession to the Belt and Road Initiative.

• The candidates for the OAS Secretary-General race, Suriname Foreign Minister Albert Ramdin and Paraguayan Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano presented different views on the PRC. The former said that “all countries should have the same opportunity to be able to speak, influence and contribute”, while the latter “warned during the session that the OAS must ensure that the support it receives from external nations ‘does not divert even a millimeter’ the organization from its objectives.”

  • China has been a formal observer of the Organization of American States (OAS) since 2004, and the two sides signed a formal cooperation agreement to create a dedicated fund in 2014. That said, the United States has historically been the largest financial contributor to the organization.

• China Ganfeng Lithium inaugurated its $790 million plant in Salta: the Mariana Project. This is the company’s first plant in Argentina, and it has a production capacity of 20,000 tons of lithium chloride per year.

  • Although Argentina’s president ran on an anti-China platform during the election, this comes as the Milei administration seeks to reinvigorate economic ties with the PRC. Recently, La Nacion reported that the Casa Rosada is looking to restart mega-dam construction in Santa Cruz, another signature Chinese project in the country.

Core Brief

Why the New Panama-China Flight Matters

Earlier this month, Panama City’s international airport announced that Air China would likely return to the Central American country later this summer. Direct flights (via Houston) between Panama City and Beijing were originally launched in April 2018 after the two countries established diplomatic ties. However, the two sides were forced to pause travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the surface, this new flight symbolizes an end (admittedly, a late end) to those COVID-19 disruptions. China, of course, was quite slow to recover from the pandemic. While most other direct flights (such as those to Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil) relaunched over the last couple of years, this one had held off. Though most other facets of life have returned post-COVID, this shows that China is truly reintegrated into the region’s economy post-COVID.

More significantly, this new flight comes as Panama’s relations with China are increasingly a source of tension with the United States. These tensions notably resulted in Panama’s formal withdrawal from the BRI. Yet while Panama is planning to withdraw from the political BRI agreement, this new flight route shows how firms between the two countries plan to continue engaging with one another. Much like other investment, trade, and financing interactions, commercial integration between the two countries won’t necessarily end just because of the withdrawal of a symbolic political accord.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• After the U.S. Charge d’Affaires in the Bahamas criticized China’s “malign influence” in the Caribbean country, both the Bahamian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister claimed their country’s neutrality in any spats between Beijing and Washington. The Chinese Ambassador to Nassau also condemned the remarks.

• The head of the Chinese foreign ministry’s Latin America and Caribbean section discussed food, energy, and international affairs cooperation with Cuban President Díaz-Canel. (Granma) Meanwhile, most of Latin America and the Caribbean’s ambassadors to Beijing met with PRC Assistant Foreign Minister Miao Deyu on February 12 to discuss broad cooperation. (FMPRC)

• Venezuela’s ambassador to Beijing sat down with the head of the CCP’s International Department to transmit a message from President Maduro and recent political events in each country. (VTV)

• The U.S. State Department revoked visas for two Costa Rican legislators who had criticized San Jose’s decision to bar Huawei from Costa Rica’s 5G network.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• Panama City’s primary airport said that it expects China Air to relaunch direct flights to the PRC later this summer. This expansion would likely revive a previous flight route, and it comes as other airlines from around the world look to restart flights to Panama.

• Sinopec and Canadian firm New Stratus Energy proposed to jointly operate Ecuador’s Sacha oil field. Also known as Block 60, the field is Ecuador’s most productive, producing 75,000 barrels per day (or 15% of Ecuador’s output).

• Responding to the local Chinese ambassador’s threats that PRC companies might start withdrawing investment from the country, Costa Rica’s trade minister said “There has not been a significant flow of investment in Costa Rica of Chinese origin, it is because there is no interest from China in Costa Rica's value proposition” during a recent congressional hearing.

• Cuba inaugurated a Chinese-built solar plant in Cotorro on February 22, just as a high-level Chinese foreign ministry official visited the country. (TV Cubana)

• Chinese firm MMG purchased $500 million in Brazilian nickel mines from Anglo American.

Trade and Technology

• The Mexican economy ministry launched a new anti-dumping investigation against Chinese cardboard producers, which could lead to new tariffs or quotas. At the same time, Mexico extended a quota on Chinese stainless steel pipes for five years. Similarly, Peru proposed provincial anti-dumping duties on Chinese standard tableware imports.

• The Governor of the Chilean province of Ñuble hosted the President of the Shandong Province Trade and Investment Association to discuss agriculture, tourism, and renewable energy cooperation. Meanwhile, companies from Inner Mongolia traveled throughout Uruguay and Brazil and signed 17 cooperation agreements. (CGTN)

• While Honduras’s trade deficit with China continued to grow in the years after the two countries established relations, the country’s agriculture minister said the Central American nation will export about 1,000 tons of coffee to the PRC this year. Exports of shrimp are also picking up, with Honduras granting certificates for about 40 tons of shrimp exports.

• For the first time, Ecuador exporters shipped canned tuna to China. The exports were possible due to last year’s Free Trade Agreement.

Taiwan

• Several potential Honduran opposition presidential candidates, including former Vice President Nasralla and two National Party candidates, expressed support for Taiwan and potentially re-establishing diplomatic ties with the Republic of China.

• The Taiwan Cooperation Partnership Trust facilitated by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) announced it will fund feasibility studies for the Northern Regional and Punta Gorda Town hospitals in Belize with nearly $100,000.

• After Secretary Rubio’s trip to Central America, the Taiwanese ambassador to Guatemala City said that Taiwan sees the country as a potential economic hub and that “we can build a more strategic alliance between the three countries [Guatemala, Taiwan, and the United States] also based on the same shared values.”

• Taiwan’s embassy in St. Kitts and Nevis donated videoconferencing equipment to that government’s foreign ministry and the office of Joseph Nathaniel France Hospital.

• The Taiwan Technical Mission (TTM) in Saint Lucia signed an MOU on agriculture data collection with the Caribbean Cooperative Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (CCMRV) Hub.

• The $6.3 million Taiwan-Paraguay Intelligent Technology Park in Minga Guazú was launched by representatives from the two countries in mid-February.

Society and culture

• CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Limited (CPGL) and the 20th China Medical Team from Jiangsu Province donated a new surgical imaging system to Georgetown Public Hospital in Guyana.

Analysis and Opinion

• Former Biden Administration State Department official Eric Jacobstein wrote in the New York Times that “As Mr. Trump alienates our neighbors [in Latin America] through threats and ultimatums, Beijing stands ready to step into the void.” Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli wrote a piece on the same theme for WOLA.

• The BBC published a piece by Matt Murphy, Jake Horton, and Erwan Rivault maps where Chinese companies have built and invested near the Panama Canal.

• CSIS’s Ryan Berg gave testimony to a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on “the PRC’s strategic port Investments in the Western Hemisphere and the implications for homeland security,” including investments near Panama. Isaac Kardon from the Carnegie Endowment also provided notable testimony.

• An article in Dialogue Earth by David Papannah details how Chinese agriculture projects in the Caribbean are aiding in the region’s food security efforts.

• Sarah Camacho writes for the Carnegie Endowment that “the canal crisis that Panama is facing may be geographically small, but it could have large ramifications for the region and U.S.-China competition in Latin America.”

• George Washington University Professor Y. Tony Yang wrote some analysis for the Global Taiwan Institute on how dismantling USAID will affect Taiwan’s and China’s global influence, including across Latin America and the Caribbean.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers January 27 to February 10.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• Owing in part to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip and his warning that the U.S. would take action if there were no “immediate changes” in Sino-Panamanian ties, Panama announced it would not “renew” its membership in China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after the accord expires in 2026. President Mulino also confirmed that his country would audit Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports’ operation of two ports near the canal.

• Also on his trip to Central America, Secretary Rubio praised Costa Rica’s ban on Huawei in the country’s 5G network and championed Guatemala’s continued relationship with Taiwan. Regarding the former, Rubio offered to help punish officials who favor “foreign actors” (like China)” in state contracts. For the latter, Rubio called the Taiwan-Guatemala relationship “not simply a diplomatic relationship, but an economic, investment and opportunity relationship.”

• Following the Trump Administration’s threats against Colombia, the Chinese ambassador continued to promote bilateral ties between Beijing and Bogota. The diplomat noted that the cultural distance “far from creating obstacles, bring us closer and enrich us.” Politico recently reported that Beijing is also interested in filling the void left by USAID’s foreign aid freeze in the South American country.

  • All this comes just as Colombia officially joins the Belt and Road Initiative and the two nations celebrate 45 years of relations. Relatedly, President Petro recently directed his new finance minister to weaken his country’s dependency on the United States.

• A government commission released its report on China’s (and India’s) interference in Canada’s elections. The report found that Trudeau’s government was “insufficiently transparent” and took “too long to act.” However, the report did not find that the interference meaningfully impacted the outcome of the elections.

• Chinese companies continue to expand in Brazil: Huaxin Cement Company entered the Brazilian market by buying its Brazilian competitor, Embu S.A. Engenharia e Comércio, for $186 million. Embu is one of the largest crushed stone mine operators in the South American country, with four quarries located in São Paulo. Meanwhile, Chinese car firm Great Wall Motors said it will open its new $1.6 billion plant in Brazil later this year.

Core Brief

Does a BRI agreement actually mean more money in LAC?

Just last week, President of Panama José Mulino said his government would not renew its participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2026. In response, U.S. policymakers praised the move as “a great step forward,” while U.S.-based analysts like Ryan Berg called the decision a “win” and Margaret Myers characterized the change as “symbolic.”

A lot of hay is being made out of Panama leaving the agreement and how it could reduce Chinese influence in the country. Certainly, Myers is right to characterize Panama's withdrawal as highly symbolic — these political agreements are one of Xi Jinping’s signature policy accomplishments, so Panama’s withdrawal (even if under pressure from the United States) symbolically shows how Panama City ultimately prioritizes ties with Washington over Beijing.

That said, given that the BRI agreements never seemed to increase Chinese financing to the region, it’s not obvious if the BRI withdrawal on its own will lead to any tangible financial penalties for Panama.

A little BRI background

Launched in 2013 and largely focused on just Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, the BRI covers five policy areas: policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people ties. That said most focus on the “facilities connectivity” (aka infrastructure projects), “unimpeded trade”, and “financial integration” bits, as they often cover the financing (typically via loans and grants) for major new infrastructure projects around the globe that the BRI is known for.

When Panama joined the BRI right after it established ties with the PRC in 2017, it was the first Latin American or Caribbean country to join the initiative. Subsequently, most LAC countries joined the BRI in 2018 or 2019, with a couple more (namely Argentina and Colombia) trickling in much more recently. All in all, 22 LAC countries are currently BRI members.1

Have BRI agreements impacted Chinese financing in LAC?

Since the BRI was launched in 2013, LAC countries received billions upon billions of dollars in loans, grants, and swaps from the PRC. But data from two key sources — one from the Inter-American Dialogue on Chinese policy bank financing, and the other from William and Mary’s AidData on a broader range of Chinese loans and grants — shows that formal agreements to join the BRI never actually led to an increase in Chinese financing.2

According to the Dialogue, in the years between when the BRI was announced (2013) and when LAC governments joined the initiative (mostly in 2018 and 2019)3, the average yearly financing that Chinese policy banks loaned to LAC governments was about $550 million.

After governments joined the BRI through 2024? The average was only $25 million. Only Guyana, which had received about $9 million a year on average before joining the BRI saw a bump after signing onto the initiative. Subsequently, its average yearly financing from Chinese policy banks rose to $33 million. Every other LAC country saw its average yearly financing from Chinese policy banks drop after formally joining the BRI.

AidData, which covers a much broader range of swaps, grants, and loans, shows the same story. In the years between 2013 and when a LAC country became a BRI member, the average financing totaled $1.53 billion per year. After joining the BRI, a LAC country’s average financing dropped to just $193 million annually. Of all the LAC governments, only Chile saw more loans and grants after its BRI membership, going from $59 million to a little more than $1 billion per year on average.4

Ultimately, both AidData’s and the Inter-American Dialogue’s data don’t show a strong relationship between signing a BRI agreement and receiving more Chinese financing. Of course, it is likely not the case that signing the agreement itself led to less financing (from COVID-19 to domestic economic changes in the PRC, there are many other reasons why this may have happened). But at least when it comes to financing, the BRI agreements themselves don’t seem to have made an obvious impact.

What does this mean for Panama?

In many ways, the term “Belt and Road Initiative” is simply a marketing term for the explosion of Chinese construction, financing, and investment around the world since Xi Jinping took office.

While there was a boom in Chinese financing throughout the region after China’s recovery from the global financial crisis, by the time LAC governments signed formal agreements to “join” the initiative, Chinese financing to the region began to decline.5

Because of this, it’s unclear if Panama will see a large drop in Chinese financing just because it plans to leave the initiative.6 Whether or not Chinese companies and institutions will refrain from financing (or trading, investing, or building) in Panama in the future probably has more to do with broader political and economic engagement rather than this one specific agreement.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• The Uruguayan city of Canelones received a delegation from the Chinese city of Hulubuir in Inner Mongolia. The two cities signed an agreement on economic, livestock, tourism, and cultural cooperation.

• The President of Peru’s legislature received a delegation led by the Secretary-General of the PRC National People's Congress’ Standing Committee, Yang Zhenwu.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• After a hiccup last month when Bolivia’s legislature delayed a new Hong Kong lithium investment, a key congressional committee approved the contract signed with CBC for a project in the Uyuni salt flat.

• The Ortega regime granted two new 25-year mining concessions near the Nicaraguan-Honduran border to Chinese firm Brother Metal: one for 24,612 hectares between Nueva Segovia and Madriz, the other for 6,960 hectares in Chinandega.

• China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) won a contract to build the $11 million level crossing in Naranjo, Costa Rica.

• Since a New York judge found that China Construction America (CCA) owed over $1 billion for the Baha Mar project, CCA filed for bankruptcy. The Bahamas-based BML Properties also asked the judge to investigate potential fraudulent transfers.

• To reduce imports from China (and despite recent U.S. tariff threats), Swiss food company Nestle announced a new $1 billion investment in Mexico.

Trade and Technology

• Uruguay’s main dairy export firm Conaprole signed an agreement with Chinese company Yili to strengthen bilateral dairy cooperation.

• Leading Honduran economic official Fredis Cerrato claimed that his country’s in-negotiation Free Trade Agreement with China would not harm trade relations with the United States.

• The Chinese Embassy in Georgetown noted that PRC-Guyana trade grew by more than 14% last year, reaching more than $1.4 billion.

• China continues to be a major export destination for South America: Venezuela’s largest oil export destination, with a 21% increase in exports in January compared to December, while Peru’s avocado exports grew by 40% last year.

• Chilean cherry producers faced a crisis recently when 1,300 containers with 5 million boxes of cherries worth were delayed, possibly costing them up to $130 million.

Taiwan

• Belize will defer payment on ten loans from Taiwan for another three years due to “cash flow” problems.

• Taiwan officially launched a new rice donation project and a public health cooperation project in Guatemalan cooperation with U.S. and Catholic charities.

• The ROC’s and Haiti’s health ministers chatted on the sidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) to discuss health cooperation.

• Taiwan’s new ambassador to St. Lucia, Nicole Su, officially took up her new post. She previously served in St. Vincent and was mostly posted in Geneva. Meanwhile, a new joint medical mission from the United States and Taiwan will arrive later this month.

Society and culture

• Chinese-descendent communities across Latin America celebrated the Year of the Snake with festivals and parades, including in Mexico City, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. PRC embassies and civil society organizations also hosted gatherings with senior LAC leaders in countries like Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Ecuador, Guyana, and Jamaica.

• PRC United Front organization Jamaica-China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification donated 11 tablet computers to primary schools in Montego Bay.

Analysis and Opinion

• Typically conservative and hawkish Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady criticized the Trump Administration’s Panama policy, writing that “The president claims Chinese soldiers are working in the canal. That’s nonsense.”

• Kate Linthicum and Stephanie Yang write in the Los Angeles Times that “experts say China has been handed another opportunity in its quest to dominate the [Latin American and Caribbean] region: the presidency of Donald Trump.”

• The Atlantic has a piece by Quico Toro on how “Trump’s Colombia spat is a gift to China,” noting that “Latin American leaders don’t like submitting to the United States in imperial mode [and that] they also have an alternative.”

• Former Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan wrote in Americas Quarterly that “If the North American trade edifice unravels or is torn asunder because of tit-for-tat trade disputes and the potential demolition of the USMCA, the only winner will be China.”

• Clovis Nelson argues in the Jamaica Observer that Jamaica is “leveraging the advantages of Chinese investment while ensuring the protection and promotion of national interests. Concurrently, the relative disengagement of the United States from the Caribbean has created a space that China has adeptly filled.”

• Dialogue Earth published an analysis by Javier Lewkowicz on how Argentine provinces are intensifying their relationship with China.

• Recent academic publications on China-Latin American ties include an article by Evan Ellis in the Journal of the Americas on “China, the Illiberal Counter-Order, and the Role of Values in the Strategic Response” and an article in Great Power Competition Volume 6 on “China’s Expanding Role in Latin America’s Defense, Aerospace, and Telecommunications” by Alvaro Mendez & Gaspard Estrada.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers January 14 to January 26.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• In his inaugural address, President Trump (falsely) declared “China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.” Following these remarks, the Panamanian Maritime Authority said it would audit the firm (Hutchison Holdings) that operates two of the three Chinese-run canal ports. In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed it had “never interfered” in canal operations.

  • Possibly in a gesture of how seriously Washington is taking this issue, Panama will be one of the first countries visited by Secretary of State Rubio.

• Grenada’s Prime Minister wrapped up his trip to the PRC on January 17. During the visit, he met with President Xi and Premier Li, with the former suggesting that the two countries should cooperate in “new energy, green and low-carbon development, and digital economy.” The two sides signed 13 cooperation agreements on issues like “agriculture, renewable energy, arts and culture, and tourism”, and $13.7 million in aid. Prime Minister Dickon also met with the Grenadian diaspora in China.

  • This appears to be Dickon Mitchell’s first visit to the PRC since his election in 2022, though his predecessor Keith Mitchell traveled to Beijing in 2015.

• The long-standing China-Costa Rica dispute over purchasing Huawei equipment for the Central American country’s 5G network continued this week when the PRC ambassador criticized the Costa Rican and U.S. governments. She threatened that Chinese companies may increasingly find the Costa Rican market unappealing and that Costa Rica might receive less science and technology cooperation with China while labeling the United States as the “true hacker empire in the world.”

  • China’s embassy has long protested San Jose’s efforts to prohibit the PRC firm Huawei from supporting Costa Rica’s 5G network expansion. This issue has been a thorn in the side of Sino-Costa Rican relations for years.

• A delegation of municipal FSLN Nicaraguan politicians traveled to Beijing and met with the vice head of the CCP’s party school and the head of the CCP’s International Department, in part to discuss party-building cooperation.

  • Since Nicaragua established ties with the PRC a few years ago, the Ortega regime has quickly become one of Beijing’s closest friends in the region. Cooperation has ranged from numerous infrastructure projects to an FTA to lunar cooperation.

• Brazil’s agriculture ministry received a notice in early January, from Chinese customs authorities that they had temporarily suspended exports from five of the country’s largest soy exporters for phytosanitary reasons. Some business exports suggested that the temporary suspension could be a means to increase soy imports from the United States following Trump’s inauguration. However, Brazilian officials said they only expect the exports to be paused for about two months.

  • Brazil has generally beaten out the United States as China’s largest source of soybeans since 2011, with the South American country exporting $31.9 billion in 2022 to the U.S.’s $18 billion. And even while some Brazilian exporters have been temporarily banned from China, PRC buyers are still purchasing large quantities of Brazilian soy to hedge against Trump’s tariff threats.

Core Brief

How Latin America and the Caribbean Celebrate the Chinese New Year

Though the vast majority of the more than a billion people who celebrate the Lunar New Year live west of the International Date Line, there still is a sizable Chinese diaspora in LAC with its traditions and celebrations. Unsurprisingly, the PRC embassy in many of these countries often leverages the holiday to advance its political objectives. However, local Chinese-descendent communities also host their events without the influence of the CCP.

The holiday provides a natural opportunity for PRC Ambassadors to address the state of China’s relationship with their local posting. For example, the Chinese ambassador to Mexico gave a major press conference for the holiday. Similarly, the overseas missions in Bolivia, Honduras, and Dominica held big celebrations at their embassies with local officials and a major speech by the ambassador. Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, the embassy leveraged the celebrations to inaugurate its new embassy building.

The Chinese Embassy also sponsors and engages with local communities over the new year to advance the PRC’s soft power. In Cuba, this included sponsoring an art exhibition in Havana of 18th to 20th-century porcelain figures. At the same time, in Colombia, the embassy facilitated a festival in the Parque de los Novios in Bogotá that attracted thousands of attendees. In Chile, the embassy brought the Wu Zhejiang Opera to perform at a large festival and sponsored a table tennis tournament.

That said, of course, local governments and communities also chose to celebrate the new year without engaging the PRC embassy. In Panama, for example, the government’s National Council of the Chinese in Panama hosted a parade and fair in Panama City’s Chinatown.1

While the new year is naturally independent of the PRC and thousands of Chinese-descendent people in LAC celebrate the holiday without regard for the PRC, the Lunar New Year also provides a natural avenue for Beijing to advance its soft power in the region. As these few examples show, the Chinese embassies use a savvy range of celebrations and speeches to advance this priority in the region.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• Brazilian foreign policy advisor Celso Amorim talked with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the phone, where the latter advocated for greater BRICS cooperation and discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine.

• When U.S. President Trump threatened Colombia with tariffs and sanctions, the Chinese embassy responded by saying that bilateral ties had hit an all-time high.

• Uruguay hosted the VII Dialogue Meeting between MERCOSUR and the PRC in Montevideo.

• Honduran foreign ministry officials suggested that reduced U.S. foreign aid and deportations under a Trump Administration could “push their country closer to China.”

• Ecuador’s military received 70 vans from the Chinese firm Great Wall that will be used to fight organized crime. (Xinhua)

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC) signed an agreement with Nicaragua to build a new 55MW wind farm in Estelí.

• Even though Brazil has repeatedly declined to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Chinese Ambassador to Brasilia still advocated for the country to join the BRI at a recent China-Brazil Business Council event.

• When Canada hosts the G7 in June, the country’s Natural Resources Minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, said that his government plans to put competing with China on critical minerals extraction at the center of negotiations.

• Bolivia’s congress rejected a proposal for a lithium extraction project from CBC due to an insufficient amount of documentation on the project. The rejection comes just a week after Bolivia’s state-owned lithium company (YLB) signed a contract with the firm.

  • The Andean country’s public works department also recently reviewed “infrastructure and transport” cooperation with the Chinese ambassador.

• The Argentine province of Santa Cruz signed an MOU with Fuzhou Hongdong Pelagic Fishery Company for port modernization and new processing plants, while the national government bought three new train locomotives from CRRC International for the San Martín line.

Trade and Technology

• Venezuelan leader Maduro revealed that his government is working with China to launch the “Cacique Guaicaipuro” satellite, which will provide satellite internet.

• Due to Trump’s threats over its Chinese economic ties, the Mexican government is seeking to reduce its trade deficit with the PRC, in part by establishing a task force with U.S. companies to reduce Mexican imports of Chinese parts.

  • Relatedly, CNN had an interesting profile of a Chinese industrial park in Monterrey.

• The Chinese and U.S. ambassadors both spoke at the Business Prospects in the Bahamas Conference, with the former urging the Bahamas to join the BRI and the latter warning that Chinese investment can come with “disastrous conditions.”

• Reflective of a broader global trend to combatting Chinese exporting overcapacity, Peru’s National Institute for the Defense of Competition launched its third investigation into a key Chinese export (this time, steel wire) this past week.

• Despite lacking diplomatic relations, Paraguay’s largest source of imports in 2024 was China. The PRC made up 32% of Paraguay’s imports, while back in 2022 it was only 28% of imports.

Taiwan

• Taiwan’s foreign ministry donated $3 million to Belize in grants for two education initiatives: the National School Feeding Program and the Wi-Fi in Schools Program.

• In his Senate confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Rubio claimed that Panama was instrumental in lobbying the Dominican Republic to flip ties from Taipei to Beijing.

• During his recent trip to DC, Paraguayan President Santiago Peña sat down with Taiwanese Representative to the United States Alexander Yui to review political and economic ties.

• St. Lucia welcomed a new Taiwanese ambassador, Nicole Su, who is the first woman in the role and who had previously served in St. Vincent.

• Although President Lai has not indicated that he will visit St. Vincent, the country’s Opposition MP St. Clair Leacock voiced concern about the Taiwanese leader traveling to the Caribbean nation during an election year.

Society and culture

• China’s foreign ministry donated 120 ambulances to the Dominican Republic’s Directorate of Out-of-Hospital Emergency Care Services (DAEH), raising the director’s number of ambulances by nearly 20%.

• A delegation of healthcare policymakers from Honduras traveled to Beijing in mid-January to meet with officials from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention cooperation for diseases like Dengue. (CGTN)

• Following Cuba’s major blackouts late last year, the second batch of PRC electricity equipment, including parts and accessories for generators, arrived in Havana.

• China’s ambassador to Colombia traveled to Tolima to discuss strengthening “cultural and tourist ties”, including music and academic exchanges.

Analysis and Opinion

• Brenda Estefan and Jose Carlos Rodriguez Pueblita argue in Americas Quarterly that “Mexico’s trade relationship with China has placed it at the heart of North America’s simmering economic and geopolitical tensions.”

• The New York Times published a piece by Vivian Wang on how “China has been working to build ties and influence in Panama for years, part of its broader ambition to expand its footprint in Latin America. The effort has had some successes, but also plenty of setbacks.”

• José Peña Santana writes about the Dominican Republic’s need for a “an aggressive trade policy that encourages innovation, quality and diversification of Dominican products” in Nuevo Diario to deal with flagging exports to China.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers December 31 to January 13.

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The Top 4 Stories:

• The Prime Minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell, is visiting Beijing, Zhejiang, and Shanghai from January 11-17. The trip comes on the eve of the 20^th anniversary of diplomatic relations. PM Mitchell met with President Xi, and is also expected to meet with Premier Li and the head of the PRC’s legislature. (CGTN) (CGTN)

  • Signifying the two sides’ deepening ties, Grenada’s Government Information Service (GIS) signed an MOU on new cooperation with Chinese state media outlet Xinhua.

  • This appears to be Dickon Mitchell’s first visit to the PRC since his election in 2022, though his predecessor Keith Mitchell traveled to Beijing in 2015.

• As mentioned last edition, China’s Ministry of Commerce initiated a safeguard investigation into beef imports at the end of last year that could severely affect beef sales from Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Recently in response, Brazil’s agriculture ministry said that it would work with its Chinese counterparts to show that its beef production is not negatively impacting the PRC’s industry. Similarly, Uruguay’s agriculture minister met with the Chinese ambassador and promised to provide as much technical information as possible to avoid new trade barriers.

  • Ironically, this trade investigation into the oversupply of a key commodity comes as countries across the hemisphere (and around the world) place trade barriers on Chinese manufactured exports over concerns of PRC “overcapacity.” Recently, governments ranging from Mexico to Brazil to Chile have put tariffs on Chinese goods to try to keep their domestic industries competitive.

• A delegation led by Vice Chair of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, Wang Dongming, attended Nicolas Maduro’s inauguration in Venezuela. (Telesur)

  • With many Latin American and Caribbean countries refusing to recognize Venezuela’s fraudulent elections, China’s decision to send a high-level emissary to Maduro’s inauguration shows that Beijing plans to stand by the authoritarian regime.

  • That said, Wang isn’t the most notable official they could have sent — he’s a Central Committee member (the third highest body in the CCP). However, he ranks below Vice President Han Zheng’s (who will be attending Trump’s inauguration) previous position as a Politburo Standing Committee member, which is the highest decision-making body in the CCP.

• Just as China-Panama relations have been in the news owing to U.S. President-elect Trump’s comments on the canal, PowerChina signed an agreement with Sajalices Energy to build a 530MW solar plant.

  • That said, the power plant will be built far from the canal, so this shouldn’t provide another excuse for the incoming Trump Administration to bully Panama over Chinese influence near the canal.

Core Brief

Does China really care that much about Taiwan’s few Caribbean diplomatic partners?

Almost exactly two decades ago, Grenada broke ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing. Prime Minister Mitchell’s recent visit to China for the 20^th anniversary, as well as his comments that “there is only one China, and that speaks for itself,” serve as a reminder of this history.

Currently, there are still six Caribbean Basin countries (plus Paraguay) that still recognize the Taipei-based Republic of China (ROC)1 over the Beijing-based PRC. Though these countries routinely praise their friendship with Taiwan, PRC diplomats frequently try to convince governments (or sometimes just engage, with little to no convincing required) to instead recognize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-led government on the mainland.

The PRC government (especially its diplomats abroad) clearly cares about convincing the few LAC governments that host ROC embassies to replace them with PRC ones — just last month, a high-ranking Chinese foreign ministry official was kicked out of Paraguay for lobbying government officials. Relatedly, the Chinese foreign ministry has been on a recent kick of routinely calling on Guatemala to make the “right choice” to establish ties with the PRC.

But the news’ frequent discussion of a few Taipei-recognizing holdouts often obscures the issue’s real importance in the CCP’s Taiwan strategy. If convincing these countries to switch ties to the PRC was central to the CCP’s strategy to take over Taiwan, one would expect the CCP to explicitly tie their unification plans to eliminating the ROC’s formal relationships. Interestingly, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Since the PRC’s and CCP’s officials and various offices are constantly publishing new statements on Taiwan, it’s difficult to find one comprehensive piece that articulates the PRC’s beliefs and strategy on the issue. Generally, the most authoritative documents for the CCP’s Taiwan policy are the three White Papers published in 1993, 2000, and 2022. Surprisingly, these papers barely explicitly condemn continued formal relations with the ROC.

Formal Ties in the White Papers

The closest the papers come to condemning formal ties with Taipei is when the 2022 paper stated “Taiwan has no right to represent China... nor can it establish diplomatic ties or enter into relations of an official nature with foreign countries.” But this wording condemns Taiwan and the broader situation, not the other countries themselves. Moreover, unlike much of the rest of the paper, the line doesn’t include a call to action for the few countries that recognize the ROC to change their ways.

Even the second white paper implicitly admitted that official relations with the ROC is not a major stumbling block in cross-Strait relations. When discussing the key foreign relations-related issues in the 1993 document, the 2000 paper identifies “relations between Taiwan and countries maintaining diplomatic ties with China, relations between international organizations... aviation services... and arms sales” as the four major areas of dispute.

What’s missing in this formulation? Formal relations between Taiwan and countries that do not maintain diplomatic ties with China.

Other Issues in the White Papers

So, what do the papers condemn instead?

All three papers extensively criticize Taiwan’s “pragmatic diplomacy” with countries that both recognize the PRC and host unofficial Taiwanese trade and cultural offices.2 The papers complain that this pragmatic diplomacy seeks to “create "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan."

Given the focus on these kinds of “pragmatic” relationships with PRC-recognizing countries, the main targets of the papers’ ire are the United States and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as well as pro-Taiwan politicians like the late former President Lee Teng-hui.

All three papers extensively criticize Washington by claiming that the United States is promoting Taiwan's independence (the first paper spends four paragraphs griping about U.S. policy alone). The papers frequently criticize Taiwanese actors who have refused to abide by China’s formulation on One China. But unlike these actors, LAC countries with formal ties to Taipei are not cited as a major impediment to unifying Taiwan and the Chinese Mainland.

Why does this matter?

As the white papers make clear, concerns about the ROC’s remaining formal relations are more symbolic than anything else. Even more than symbolic military exercises or issuing ROC citizens PRC identification cards, winning over diplomatic partners is not central to the PRC’s cross-Strait strategy.

That said, because a symbolic win is still a kind of victory, lobbying Taipei’s diplomatic partners to switch ties will likely remain a favorite pastime of Chinese diplomats for the foreseeable future. But at least judging from some of the most important documents on the CCP’s cross-strait strategy, the CCP’s overall mission to unify the Chinese Mainland with Taiwan is not dependent on Taipei’s few remaining diplomatic partners.

And so, when LAC governments make the same choice that Grenada made 20 years ago to have an embassy in Beijing instead of Taipei, it’s important to recognize that the PRC is only leveraging the headlines about a new partner for symbolic pressure rather than a key step in taking over Taiwan.

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The Roundup

Politics and diplomacy

• Ecuador and China celebrated 45 years of relations this week, prompting Presidents Noboa and Xi to exchange messages of congratulations.

• As Canada prepares to hold a general election, China’s embassy in Ottawa released a statement saying that it was looking to improve trade and political ties. Relatedly, SCMP published a piece on whether Canada will get closer to the PRC under a new leader.

• The main opposition in Suriname, the National Democratic Party, “praised China for is support of the Desi Bouterse government,” after the local PRC embassy expressed condolences following the former leader’s death.

• The scandal-ridden head of Peru’s legislature, Eduardo Salhuana, will travel to China in the coming days to meet with his parliamentary counterparts to discuss “international trade, port development, multimodal transport and tourism,” as well as to strengthen ties with Shanghai and Shenzhen.

• Chinese Ambassador to the Bahamas Yan Jiarong met with Prime Minister Philip Davis to discuss her work since she landed on the island six months ago to “advance economic and trade cooperation, local cooperation, [and] people-to-people exchange.” (FMPRC)

• Brazil assumed the BRICS group presidency on January 1, which will likely lead to President Xi returning to the country for the leader’s summit later this year.

Defense and security

• New reporting finds that the Chinese government recently offered to sell Chengdu J-10 fighter jets to Brazil, but the South American government declined both because it was supposed to receive an order of fighters from Sweden and for what it claims were “financial issues.”

• The Bolivian Navy hosted a high-altitude diving course at Lake Titicaca for 20 Chinese marines.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• The PRC donated “69 tons of radiators, engines, parts and other accessories” to Cuba to help rehabilitate the country’s electrical grid. This is the second tranche of goods since 2024, and it will help rebuild 400MW of generation potential.

• Chinese mining firm Zijin paused the construction of a lithium plant in Argentina owing to accusations of poor working conditions and unpaid debts (many of which were leveled in the fall of 2024), leaving 150 workers unemployed. However, the company plans to open the plant in 2025 and has promised to establish better working conditions.

Trade and Technology

• A year and a half after negotiations started, the Chinese-Honduran FTA discussions have reportedly stagnated.

  • This is hurting shrimp farmers, as well as other agriculture producers seeking to export to the PRC. Most recently, the Santa Ines Aquaculture Group said it would leave Honduras because the country hasn’t been able to make up its lost shrimp exports to Taiwan.

• Peru’s intellectual property and trade office launched a dumping investigation into Chinese stainless steel car washes, which could result in significant tariffs on these Chinese imports.

Taiwan

• Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs donated $100,000 to Belize’s National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) to help livestock producers affected by Tropical Storm Sara.

• The Taiwanese embassy in St. Vincent donated toiletries, electronics, light hardware and protective gear to various local civil society and government entities. It also gave 29 agricultural tools and about 44,000 seedlings to local farmers.

• Guatemala has a new ambassador to Taipei – Luis Raúl Estévez López, Guatemala’s former representative to the OAS. Estévez promised to enhance the 90-year-old relationship.

Society and culture

• The University of the Andes in Colombia signed an agreement with the Hebei University of International Relations to facilitate exchanges and strengthen academic cooperation.

• New Chinese-run stores that undercut their competition with low prices are hurting local businesses in Honduras. Chinese-run shops are expanding across the region, with a massive new Max Supermarket being built near Managua in Nicaragua.

• Dominica PM Roosevelt Skerritt said that the PRC will donate about $100,000 to help rebuild the Arawak House of Culture’s roof. The building was damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Analysis and Opinion

• With Trump’s threats of tariffs against Mexico in part over Chinese investment in the country, the New York Times published an article on PRC company’s circumvention of U.S. tariffs through Mexico. At the same time, the NYT reported on Mexican businesses planning to take advantage of reshoring owing to new U.S. tariffs on China.

  • Relatedly, the Economist has a piece on how Chinese firms are investing in Mexico to avoid U.S. tariffs, noting that “Mexico’s official FDI figures seem to undercount Chinese investment by a factor of six.”

• The Diplomat published an article by Aparna Divya and Salman Ali that argues that “Brazil’s calculated approach to the Belt and Road Initiative reflects the unique nature of Latin American politics.”

• José Luis Bernal has an op-ed in El Economista on U.S.-Mexico-China triangular relations, arguing that “new geopolitical conditions now force us to focus on how to promote trilateral communication.”

• Writing in The Conversation, Jose Caballero argues that while “in 2025, [Latin American] countries with close ties with China could become targets for the Trump administration,” “China is certainly ready to build on its partnerships in the region if, and when, opportunities arise.”

• The Atlantic Council published an article by U.S. Marine Corps Fellow Gregg Curley that “the US is right to be concerned about China’s influence over the Panama Canal.”

• Looking to the China-LAC relationship in 2025, Daniel Salazar Castellanos writes in Bloomberg that “despite the challenges posed by a new Trump Administration for relations between China and Latin America, it is projected that 2025 could continue to be positive in trade between both markets.”That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers December 16 to December 30.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• Brazil’s Public Labor Prosecutor forced Chinese EV firm BYD to halt construction on an EV plant. The prosecutor compared the working conditions to “slavery”, as workers had their passports and salaries withheld while working in a degrading environment. The workers had been hired by Jinjiang Construction Brazil. BYD denied the accusations.

  • In its bid both to expand to Latin America and to avoid Brazilian tariffs, BYD was building this plant in Bahia at the site of a shuttered Ford plant.

• U.S. President-elect Trump threatened to retake the Panama Canal, claiming that Panama was not living up to its commitments and that the Chinese military had special access to the canal. Panama’s President rejected Trump’s assertion of any Chinese interference at the canal, while China’s Foreign Ministry spoke up in support of Panama’s control of the waterway.

  • U.S. officials have long worried about the strategic implications of Chinese firms operating near the canal. Former SOUTHCOM Commander Laura Richardson would frequently raise alarm bells over the issue, but so did several U.S. senators way back in the 1990s when a Hong Kong-based firm initially took over several ports near the canal.

• The U.S. government alerted Costa Rica to Chinese cyberattacks and cyber intrusions. However, the Chinese embassy predictably rejected the U.S. accusations as “defamation.”

  • The news comes as China’s embassy has protested San Jose’s efforts to prohibit the PRC firm Huawei from supporting Costa Rica’s 5G network expansion. This issue has been a thorn in the side of Sino-Costa Rican relations for years.

• A Huawei employee based in Paraguay was caught spying on the Taiwanese embassy in Asuncion. The employee was accused of both taking pictures of the embassy as well as possibly receiving eavesdropping transmissions from inside the building.

  • Paraguay has long recognized the Republic of China (Taiwan) over the People’s Republic of China, but that has not prevented Paraguay and China from having limited trade and investment relations. That said, the PRC frequently uses the promise of commercial relations to try to woo Paraguayan politicians to flip their country’s ties to Beijing.

• Angostura Limited, a Trinidad and Tobago company known for producing its signature alcoholic bitters, re-entered the Chinese market with its first $1 million shipment.

  • The country’s trade minister said the new trade opportunity could “boost foreign exchange returns to the country.”

Core Brief

The Biggest Chinese Threat to the Panama Canal Might Just Come from Donald Trump

As he’s wont to do, the U.S. President-elect spent his Christmas stirring up controversy on Truth Social, namely this week’s quote of “Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal.”

Obviously, there are no Chinese soldiers operating the canal, and as Panama’s right-leaning president responded, the claims were “nonsense.”

However, the canal is essential to the United States’ economic and military security. Forty percent of U.S. container traffic (representing $270 billion) annually transits the canal, while U.S. Navy ships have special rights in using the waterway. No wonder U.S. policymakers have long worried about whether PRC commerce in Panama has given the Chinese military a strategic leg-up on the canal.

This makes sorting out where China does (and doesn’t) have influence near the canal all the more important.

The Ports of Cristóbal and Balboa

Roughly since the United States returned the canal to Panama, a Hong Kong-based firm has managed two of the major ports at either end of the canal: Cristóbal on the Atlantic and Balboa on the Pacific. The firm, Panama Ports Company, is a subsidiary of Hutchison Ports Holdings and had its concession for the ports renewed for another 25 years in 2021.

Though Hutchinson has largely been able to avoid a lot of controversy in its past 25 years or so of managing the ports, its Hong Kong-based headquarters shouldn’t obscure its connection to the PRC’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The company’s current chair, Victor Li, is a high-ranking member on the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a high-level (if relatively inconsequential) part of the Chinese government.

Margarita Island Port

Balboa and Cristóbal aren’t the only Panamanian ports managed by a PRC-adjacent firm. Back in 2016, the China-based Landbridge Group spent $900 million to operate the port on Margarita Island and develop it into a deep-water port.

Even more than Hutchinson, private company Landbridge has quite close ties to the CCP. Its chairman is also a CPPCC member, while the firm also reportedly has a private militia with ties to the Chinese military.

Despite these three major facilities, this doesn’t mean that a Chinese firm controls all the ports on the waterway. There are a number of other major ports near the canal, with others like the PSA Terminal run by a Singaporean firm and the Colon Container Terminal run by the Taiwanese-based Evergreen Group.

Other infrastructure

Aside from the various ports right off the canal, a couple of PRC construction firms have been active near the canal. China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) worked on the fourth bridge over the canal, while CHEC and Belgian firm Jan De Nul recently completed the Amador Cruise Terminal on the Pacific side of the canal.

So, what’s the real threat?

Back in the 1990s when the Soviet Union could no longer provide a great bugaboo for Western intelligence, the great spy novelist John le Carre turned his eyes to transatlantic concerns that Asian powers (at that time, Japan) would somehow steal the Panama Canal. Like many of his novels, The Tailor of Panama ends in betrayal as U.S. and British forces re-invade the country due to lies and false intelligence.

It's certainly possible that one day it’ll turn out that Hutchinson or Landbridge Group have been hiding PLA soldiers or have planned to sabotage the canal. But for now, (public) evidence for ongoing sabotage is about where it was in a Le Carre novel: scarce beyond a few political connections at the Chinese companies.

Instead, Trump’s less-than-diplomatic words on the canal might just threaten the United States’ interests more than the Chinese-operated ports. As U.S. Senator Cardin (D-MD) told the press recently, Trump’s words “feeds into Russia and China appeal to other countries as to whether they need to make alliances with -- with Russia and China.”

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The Roundup

Politics, society, and security

• Shanghai hosted representatives from 18 countries for a China-CELAC forum on legal cooperation, specifically related to “digital economy, technological innovation, finance, trade, investment, and climate-related issues.” (China Daily)

• Colombia and Ecuador will try to arrange a joint meeting with Chinese and Indian officials to develop a strategy to fight drug trafficking in the Pacific.

• In retaliation for Ottawa’s sanctions on Tibet and Xinjiang-related officials, the PRC sanctioned 22 Canadian entities and individuals.

• China and Nicaragua celebrated three years of diplomatic relations.

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• A consortium led by Sinopec presented an offer to develop the Sacha oil field, the largest in Ecuador, for 1.5 billion dollars.

• The Bolivian public works ministry plans to meet with the Chinese embassy to discuss the long-proposed but never completed “Bi-oceanic Corridor” megaproject.

• Explicitly in response to Chinese export competition, the U.S. Export-Import Bank approved a $526 million loan to Guyana for an energy project.

• Panama signed a contract with U.S. company AECOM USA to “update the master plan of a train to connect the Panamanian capital with the border with Costa Rica.”

Trade and Technology

• China’s Ministry of Commerce launched an investigation into beef imports, which could result in new tariffs on Argentine, Brazilian, and Uruguayan beef exports to the PRC.

• The first shipment from the controversial Port of Chancay mega port arrived in China. Symbolic of Peru’s trading relations with the PRC, the first batch of goods largely comprised fruits like blueberries and avocados. (Global Times)

• Ecuadorian and Chinese customs officials signed a Mutual Recognition Agreement that will facilitate customs processes and reduce time and cost for each side’s exporters.

• The governor of the Venezuelan state of Aragua toured the state’s Venezuelan Anonymous Company of Military Industries with business officials from Shenzhen to discuss investments in the context of Special Military Economic Zones.

• Canada’s finance ministry suggested it may impose new duties on Chinese goods in the new year it imposed tariffs on EVs, steel, and aluminum. Similarly, Mexico levied a new 35% tariff on textiles that will largely affect Chinese exports.

Taiwan

• Guatemala and Taiwan celebrated 90 years of diplomatic relations in December. In a show of support, Taipei said that it would send cybersecurity experts and set up new cybersecurity operations centers in the Central American country.

• The Taiwanese embassy donated 10,000 sacks of rice to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Society and culture

• The President of Xinhua discussed media cooperation with Grenada’s ambassador to Beijing. (Xinhua)

• The PRC and Honduras signed an agreement to set up seven new agriculture schools in the Central American nation. They also agreed that China would support a feasibility study for a new convention center.

• In cooperation with the Bahamas Agricultural & Industrial Corporation, the Chinese embassy in the Bahamas donated “agricultural tools and equipment to empower [20] local farmers.”

• The Association of Chinese Enterprises in Guyana (ACEG) donated “155 essential and hygiene items” to a geriatric home in Georgetown.

• The National Orchestra of Colombia is touring China, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

Analysis and Opinion

• German Padinger published a piece on CNN on the history of Chinese trade and investment in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• In this week’s Monday edition of the Latin American Risk Report, James Bosworth wrote about how “Trump wants Latin America to be actively anti-China.”

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers November 25 to December 16.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• The Chinese Communist Party hosted the IV Forum of Political Parties through the China-CELAC Forum mechanism in Beijing on December 3. 120 delegates representing 100 political parties from 30 Latin American and Caribbean countries were in attendance, with the conference focused on both economic modernization and improving the “governance capacity” of political parties. (Xinhua)

  • Both the broad China-CELAC Forum and the party-specific Forum of Political Parties date back to 2015.

• Chinese firms were awarded major infrastructure projects in the Caribbean over the past few weeks:

  • The Jamaican government selected controversial PRC firm China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) to work on the $319 million Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) project that will rehabilitate 600 roads and lay down new pipes.

  • Guyana and Suriname chose China Road & Bridge Corporation to build a $236 million bridge over the Corentyne River to connect the two countries.

  • China and Cuba announced a deal to build seven new 5MW solar parks across six provinces to support the country’s weak energy grid.

  • That said, not everything is rosy for Chinese-built infrastructure. Trinidad and Tobago’s opposition alleged that the ANR Robinson airport expansion project, which is being built by China Railway Construction, is millions of dollars over budget.

• U.S. President-elect Trump threatened a 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods, as well as 10% tariff on Chinese goods, over his concerns about fentanyl trafficking and migration into the United States.

  • Partially in response to U.S. concerns, Mexican President Sheinbaum confirmed that Chinese EV firm BYD did not have any active manufacturing investments in the country. However, Sheinbaum then later defended Mexico’s growing trade relationship with China.

• Paraguay kicked out a Chinese envoy to Latin America, Xu Wei, who had used a UNESCO meeting to meet with Paraguayan congressional leaders to try to convince them to flip relations from Taiwan to the PRC. Taiwan’s embassy denounced Xu, calling him an “infiltrator with an unknown purpose.”

  • At the same time, the two countries recently continued to strengthen ties, with the two sides signing a bilateral visa-exemption agreement, Taiwan donating 30 electric buses and four helicopters to Paraguay, and President Lai meeting with a delegation led by Paraguay’s foreign minister.

• Vice President of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez traveled to Beijing to sign an agreement on finance and energy with China's National Commission for Development and Reform and to meet with the PRC’s Deputy Premier. At the same time, President Maduro hosted a forum on the development of special economic zones with Chinese officials, while Venezuelan state airline, Conviasa, started a new route to Guangzhou.

  • Last September, Maduro traveled to Beijing to re-ignite ties between the two countries after several years of frustrated relations. While Beijing has largely held off on sponsoring new major infrastructure projects in the indebted country, it has repeatedly shown its willingness to back the authoritarian regime.

Core Brief

A Forum Suggests that the CCP isn’t Seeking to Spread its Model (For Now, At Least)

Earlier this month, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hosted its largest yet forum of a hundred Latin American political parties in Beijing. These types of politically-focused events are always pretty notable, as they are a bit of a break from the more economic development issues that usually drive the China-LAC relationship.

For those concerned about whether the CCP will eventually try to export some of its authoritarian party-state model to other countries, the forum’s existence itself is worrying.1 But in a mildly reassuring sign, it appears (from its public language)2 that the CCP is not using the forum to double down on exporting its authoritarian party-state model to the region.

While party and state-strengthening activities were important at this forum – one article claimed that “reinforce the construction of political parties, raise their governance capacity” was one of two sub-themes for the event – the issue appears slightly less important than in previous forums. Rather, themes of global governance, economic development, and poverty alleviation were more frequently referenced in the post-forum declaration.

For background, the China-CELAC political parties forum is one of the earliest subject-specific forums in the China-CELAC system. Just months after the first headline China-CELAC ministerial, the first political party forum was held in December 2015 in Beijing with 27 political parties from 26 countries. Later fora in 2018 in Shenzhen and 20213 in Beijing were even more popular, with 80 parties at the former and 100 at the latter.4

Obviously for a forum on “political parties”, readouts and declarations from the events always at least mentioned the importance of political cooperation. In the first forum, the various political parties in attendance agreed that “exchanges... between the party cadres play a transcendent role in improving the organizational construction and capacity of the respective parties.”

The first forum also sought to increase these exchanges, saying that “it is important that we intensify to a greater extent the exchanges of experiences and reciprocal learning in everything that concerns the construction of party and the improvement of governance.”

The second forum, whose main theme was “Reform, Innovation and Party Construction,” marked a dramatic escalation in promoting party-to-party learning. The event was much more specific on the content of these exchanges, noting that “the rigorous discipline of the party is a fundamental guarantee for the vitality of political parties. Being leading forces of society, we have to integrally promote political, ideological, organizational, disciplinary construction.”

Coming off the heels of corruption purges in China, the declaration also notes that rigorous party discipline to “make our parties the backbone” of national governance should be enforced through “the fight against corruption, maintain the advanced and pure character of the party and closely linked to the people.” This type of strong language suggests at least some desire to export lessons from the CCP’s political system to the region.

By contrast, the fourth forum’s language on party-to-party learning seems to be more tolerant of different party-state relationships. Out of the declaration’s 10 points,5 only two of them mentioned state and party capacity building (the rest discussed economic development and international relations cooperation).

The first point addressed governing capacity regardless of the model of the political party, saying “political parties in China, Latin America and the Caribbean must strengthen their own construction in order to constantly increase government capacity.”

Meanwhile, the latter point reiterated previous declarations’ statements on the importance of inter-party exchanges regardless of regime type, noting that all sides should “establish institutionalized contacts and intensify political dialogue... to shape a new type of inter-party relations characterized by the search for common points above differences.”

It is certainly possible that any type of party-to-party exchange spreads the CCP’s ideas about how authoritarian party-state relationships ought to work. And this forum is not the only means the CCP has to spread political governance ideas, so analyzing these forums only provides one window into these types of political relationships.

But with all that said, the milder language in the fourth forum’s declaration at least suggests that the CCP is not6 seeking to widely proselytize its political model in LAC through this venue. Rather, the CCP (at least publicly) sees economic development and multilateral cooperation as more important than spreading its political model to a region with a long history of democracy.

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The Roundup

Politics, society, and security

• Cuban President Díaz-Canel met with the Vice President of the CCP’s Central Military Commission (the Chinese military) He Weidong, while former president Raul Castro sat down with the Chinese Minister for Public Security Wang Xiaohong.

• Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, Alberto van Klaveren Stork, traveled to Beijing to meet with Foreign Minister Wang to discuss trade, investment, and multilateral cooperation. Stork also used the visit to sign protocols on meat and fruit exports. (Xinhua)

• A Nicaraguan delegation traveled to Hubei to meet with local leaders and to discuss “twinning between provinces and cities, the strengthening of economic relations in strategic sectors, and the increase in educational, cultural, and artistic exchanges.”

• Canada sanctioned eight former and current senior Chinese officials over Tibet, Xinjiang, and repression against Falun Gong followers, most (if not all) were already sanctioned by the United States. In response, China accused Canada of a “long history of human rights violations and numerous problems.”

• The Vice President-elect of Uruguay met with the Chinese ambassador to discuss FTA negotiations and electric vehicles.

• Mexican police seized over 150 million pesos of counterfeit goods from China and dismantled three Chinese companies as part of a broader operation. Similarly in Panama, police discovered two trucks of “smuggled medicines from China with false labelings.”

• On behalf of the PRC’s State Administration for Market Regulation, Chinese Ambassador Guo signed an MOU with Guyana’s National Bureau of Standards on standards cooperation. (FMPRC) She subsequently retired from her position on December 10. Investment, infrastructure, and finance

Investment, finance, and infrastructure

• The chair of a Surinamese presidential mining commission said that Chinese mining company Chinalco would invest $426 million in a bauxite mining project that will produce 6 million tons of bauxite anually.

• Hong Kong CBC Investment Limited signed a contract with Bolivia to build two new “industrial complexes with direct lithium extraction (EDL) technology in the Uyuni salt flat.”

• Nicaragua granted yet another mining concession to a Chinese firm, this time a 9,000-hectare plot about 300 km of Managua to Xinjiang Xinxin Mining Industry Company. Meanwhile, the country received a new fleet of 400 Chinese buses.

• Chinese rubber processing machinery company Mesnac’s Hong Kong subsidiary announced it will invest $20 million in León, Mexico, for a new factory.

• Honduras signed an MOU on green energy with PowerChina and the International Coalition for the Green Development of the Belt and Road (BRIGC).

• China Harbor Engineering proposed an extension of Line 1 of the under-construction Bogotá metro in Colombia.

Trade and Technology

• The PRC’s Optimize Integration Group (OIG) and the National Association of Aquacultures of Honduras signed an MOU on prices, quality, and management of Honduran shrimp exports.

• President of Argentina Milei plans to restart the Atucha III nuclear power plant, with the negotiations for the $8 billion plant expected to continue through April 2025.

• Bolivia and China signed a new trade protocol allowing the Andean country to export 9,000 tons of chia seeds to the country.

• The U.S. Labor Department issued a confiscation order (effectively a form of sanctions) against Chinese firm Kingtom Aluminio SRL for abusive labor practices in the Dominican Republic.

• A delegation led by the National Tobacco Corporation of China visited Honduras “to explore opportunities to buy tobacco leaves and cigars.”

• The Costa Rican government filed a criminal complaint against Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) officials for corrupt dealings with Huawei. The Chinese embassy criticized the country for consulting with the U.S. on its Huawei ban.

• Chinese virtual wallet UnionPay just entered the Argentine market through a strategic alliance with Tdkpago.

Taiwan

• Four Belizean doctors took part in a training course sponsored by Taiwan’s Ministry of Health & Wellness, while Belize’s government “unveiled a brand-new water well rig truck” that was funded by Taiwan.

• Newly leaked messages reveal how then-Panamanian President Varela responded to Taiwan’s displeasure when his country broke ties with the ROC.

• On the 90^th anniversary of its relationship with the ROC, Guatemala’s foreign minister affirmed his country’s longstanding relationship with Taiwan’s government.

• Haiti’s defense minister discussed “new opportunities to modernize the Haitian Armed Forces” and “strengthen national security” with Taiwan’s ambassador.

• Taiwan’s National Police Agency gave advanced trainings to 31 St. Lucian police officers.

Society and culture

• The PRC donated five drones to the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Agriculture for “agricultural work at the Bioarroz Experimental Station in Juma, Bonao.”

• Ambassador Yu Bo met with Honduran journalists for a Christmas dinner to express “his gratitude for their work in highlighting the strengthening of bilateral relations.”

• The University of Brasilia and the Taihe Institute of China held a China-Brazil Forum with government officials, academics, and business officials to discuss issues like rural revitalization, food sovereignty, and digital transformation in agriculture. (CGTN)

• In a show of the two country’s growing cultural ties, the Chinese Embassy in Panama sponsored a Chinese lantern festival in Omar Park this month, making it the first Central American country to have such an event.

• The mayor of San Francisco de Macorís in the Dominican Republic hosted the Chinese ambassador to inaugurate a “Chinese community area” in the city.

Analysis and Opinion

• CSIS issued a new report on China’s four signals intelligence facilities in Cuba and their capabilities.

  • In response, China denied having any military bases on the island.

• Yu Jie and Christopher Sabatini wrote about China’s successful engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean in Foreign Policy.

• Coming as Peru’s foreign minister said that Lima will not change its relations with the United States in a Trump administration, Alfredo Thorne writes in Americas Quarterly that while “it [will] be difficult for Peru to avoid favoring China,” “it is difficult to see this continuing in the medium term, [as] aside from its geopolitical position, Peru has little to offer China beyond commodities.”

• The New York Times published a piece by Jack Ewing on how Chinese cars are becoming increasingly popular in Mexico.

• Earl Bousquet argues in The Voice that “Taiwan’s Caribbean allies will – sooner than later – have to make a decision on how long they’ll continue to sustain their unsustainable ties with Taipei... and from all indications, it’s just a matter of time.

• Mexican journalist Julieta Pelcastre argues in Dialogos Americas that “China is expanding its influence in El Salvador, with projects raising concern about their political, economic, and security implications for the region.”

• Ryan Berg at CSIS had a new piece on “Ending the Strategic Vacuum: A U.S. Strategy for China in Latin America.”

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers November 11 to November 24.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• President Xi made his first visit to Latin America since the pandemic for the APEC summit in Peru and the G20 summit in Brazil. Xi also received a formal state visit in both nations.

  • In Lima, Xi virtually inaugurated the COSCO-owned and operated Port of Chancay, though the port will start operations in 2025. The two sides also signed several agreements, including a free trade modernization agreement, a joint declaration strengthening their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and a FTA with Hong Kong.

  • Brazil used the opportunity to elevate bilateral relations to a “Community of Shared Future for a Fairer World and a More Sustainable Planet” and signed dozens of new deals, including in areas like trade, science and technology, and health. The China Development Bank (CDB) also loaned $690 million to Brazil’s development bank (BNDES).

  • APEC featured several high-profile meetings with Xi, including a meeting with Chilean President Boric and a brief conversation with Mexican President Sheinbaum. Argentine President Milei also met with Xi at the G20 summit, and both sides committed to improving commercial ties.

• Following years of negotiations, Suriname finally signed a debt rescheduling agreement with China. Payments to one of the PRC’s state-run policy banks, the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), will be rescheduled in two phases, while the state-run bank ICBC will have its debt repaid in one tranche.

  • The Caribbean country currently owes China’s Ex-Im bank about $476 million, of which $140 million is in arrears, while it owes about $68 million to ICBC.

• After Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Freeland publicly agreed with U.S. concerns about Chinese investment in Mexico, Mexican President Sheinbaum said that her government is working to replace imports from China with goods made in Mexico. That said, Economic Minister Ebrard later defended Chinese investment in his country.

  • The remarks come just over a year before the North American countries will hold their first “review” of the trilateral USMCA free trade agreement.

• The Vice President of China’s legislature, Li Hongzhong, visited Central America and the Caribbean. During his trip, he:

  • Discussed education, agriculture, energy, and FTA negotiations with Honduran President Castro and National Congress President Luis Redondo. The VP of Shanghai’s legislature was also in the country to review the Chinese-backed Choluteca Hospital’s construction and to donate two ambulances.

  • Met with leaders from PARLACEN and Panama’s legislature to discuss areas like agriculture, port development, and international trade. (CGTN)

  • Sat down with the Dominican Republic’s president, Luis Abinader.

• Chinese company CAMC announced it would construct a deep-water port in Bluefields on the Caribbean Sea. At the same time, Nicaraguan President Ortega pitched a new inter-oceanic canal project to 250 Chinese investors who were visiting the country for the XVII China-Latin America and the Caribbean Business Summit.

  • About 70 Latin American and Caribbean delegates also took part in the two-day conference sponsored by the Chinese Council for the Promotion of Trade and Investment and the PRC’s Political Consultative Conference.

Core Brief

What Xi’s South America adventure reveals about PRC foreign policy

For the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping visited Latin America for a series of meetings and summits with his counterparts. This certainly isn’t his first time to the region, as he’s previously made five trips. But the travel was notable for being his first trip in five years.

This visit made a lot of press because of the inauguration of the Port of Chancay and some pictures that appeared to illustrate the United States’ waning regional influence, but it also revealed some deeper insights into Chinese foreign policy.

First, despite all the concerns about how China’s influence is rising in the Western Hemisphere, the trip shows how Latin America is still stuck at the periphery of Chinese foreign policy.

Since Xi restarted traveling after the pandemic in 2022, he’s been to every other major region aside from Oceania at least once (Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America). While part of this delay was due to the summits’ timing, Xi’s lack of rush to visit South America reflects the region’s lack of centrality to China’s foreign policy.

Second, though the choice of countries partially reflects the host countries, it also reflects China’s regional priorities.

As shown in the chart above, every other trip through the region (aside from 2019) featured a summit and at least one layover to another country. Xi could have easily popped through Chile or Colombia or another increasingly close friend, but his decision to stick to two of China’s oldest and economically most important regional partners likely reflects just how significant Brazil and Peru are to Chinese foreign policy.

Finally, the biggest announcements were on infrastructure and trade. This generally shows how economic matters are still driving bilateral ties.

Rather than highlighting political,1 social, or military ties (which are often comparatively weak in much of the region), Xi used trade announcements (largely with Brazil, but also with Peru), as well as the major investment at Chancay, to physically show his country’s economic power. While onlookers increasingly fret about China’s regional influence, it is important to note that this is still largely economic, rather than political or military, in nature.

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The Roundup

Politics, society, and security

• The presidents of Bolivia and China shook hands on the sidelines of the G20 in Brazil, discussing financial cooperation, trade, and mining. They also discussed a trans-Oceanic rail project that would end at the new Port of Chancay. (Telesur)

• Two Peruvian media companies (América TV and El Comercio) signed agreements with China Media Group to produce content for the Chinese market.

• Signaling their opposition, China (and Russia) refused to discuss a U.S.-proposed resolution that would transform the current Kenya-led multinational force mission in Haiti into a UN peacekeeping mission.

• China and Colombia held the 8^th China-Colombia Dialogue in Bogotá to discuss increasing trade, cultural exchange, and technological cooperation. (Xinhua)

• A PRC general recently visited Uruguay to tour local facilities that had benefited from Chinese donations.

Investment, infrastructure, and finance

• The vice president of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) discussedstrategic projects, including possible agriculture cooperation, with Panama’s foreign minister.

  • The CIDCA official also traveled to Cuba to discuss China’s emergency assistance to the Caribbean country.

• Despite tense bilateral relations, the Canada-China Business Council hosted an indigenous trade mission to Beijing to prompt new Chinese investment in the Canadian First Nations communities.

• The Chinese Shijing Solar Group announced a new $800 million solar cell factory in Puebla, Mexico that will produce 2GW of solar cells, making it the largest factory of its kind in Latin America.

• China’s embassy in El Salvador inaugurated the construction of the country’s new International Fair and Convention Center (CIFCO).

• Both Ecuador and Bolivia are hoping to benefit from the newly-inaugurated Port of Chancay in Peru. The port may reduce transport times and costs for these countries.

Trade and Technology

• The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica issued a statement calling for “a fair and non-discriminatory business environment” as Huawei tries to bid in the country’s 5G auction (Costa Rica had previously banned Huawei from providing equipment for the telecommunications system).

• Colombia announced a new 35% tariff on iron and steel wiring from countries without FTAs. This would generally target Chinese exports.

Taiwan

• Former Taiwanese President Tsai visited Toronto, marking the first time a former Taiwanese president had visited the North American country. She urged Canada to promote Taiwan’s accession to the CPTPP trade agreement and met with Canadian MPs.

• St. Lucia received a $5.09 million grant from Taiwan “to support strategic development projects,” including education and housing projects. The ROC also donated Mandarin Chinese textbooks to a local secondary school.

• A delegation of economic officials from Guatemala and Belize led by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) met with the Taiwanese Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs to discuss energy transition and green transportation. They also agreed to a new project to help female entrepreneurs.

• Guatemala and Taiwan agreed to cooperate on “improv[ing] the collection of qualitative and quantitative data” in government-run public opinion surveys.

• Seven of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, including six from LAC (Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Guatemala, Belize, and Haiti) advocated for Taiwan’s inclusion in the international COP climate change summit.

• On the sidelines of the G20 summit, Paraguayan President Peña defended his country’s relationship with Taiwan, saying “We have trade with mainland China but we are not willing to give up a friendship with the Government of the Republic of China Taiwan.”

  • Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Executive Yuan eliminated tariffs on 17 Paraguayan products.

Analysis and Opinion

• The Wall Street Journal published a long-form piece (with lots of graphs and maps!) on “How China capitalized on U.S. indifference in Latin America” by James Areddy, Ryan Dubé, and Roque Ruiz.

• Mie Hoejris Dahl argues in Foreign Policy that China’s infrastructure strategy in Latin America is changing. He argues that this reflects a pivot, rather than an abandonment, of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) model.

• The Economist has a story about how China is courting Brazil as part of the G20 summit.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Today’s edition covers October 28 to November 10.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung concluded his Caribbean Basin tour, ultimately visiting every Taiwanese diplomatic partner in the region except for Haiti. By and large, the visits focused on Taiwan’s foreign aid efforts and cultivating personal relationships with top political leaders. Last time I covered Lin’s trip to Guatemala, but the highlights from his Caribbean trip included:

  • In Belize, Lin celebrated 35 years of official ties and suggested that Belizean shrimp farmers would soon be able to export to the ROC.

  • Lin attended St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ 45^th independence anniversary celebrations, as well as “the groundbreaking ceremony for an emergency and critical care hospital, the opening of agricultural training classroom and cold storage facility, and a plaque unveiling at a goat and sheep breeding facility”

  • In St. Lucia, the foreign minister met with the acting Governor-General and the Prime Minister, while the government unveiled a new collaboration with Taiwan on a health screening mobile app. The two sides later held a bilateral trade show.

  • The Prime Minister and Governor-General of St. Kitts and Nevis greeted the foreign minister on his trip, where they oversaw the inauguration of a new Chicken Breeder Farm and Hatchery facility at the Bayford’s Livestock Centre of Excellence.

• China’s Deputy Minister of Commerce, Wang Shouwen, traveled to Bolivia to discuss investment, lithium industrialization, and possible Bolivian exports to the PRC with President Arce.

  • Bolivia’s trade representative also met with Wang to sign a (slightly inaccurately-named) “Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation” that will provide a $14.5 million donation for border control equipment.

• President Xi will soon be visiting Peru and Brazil for the APEC and G20 summits, marking his first visit to the region since the pandemic. In addition to attending the summits, he’ll receive the honor of a state visit in both Lima and Brasilia.

  • These visits aren’t much of a surprise – they’d been announced months ago and are part of the routine global summit roadshow.

  • That said, expect a lot of hoopla about the new Chinese-built and operated Port of Chancay (which will be opened in the coming weeks), such as this article on Evan Ellis’s concerns. Just note that this project has been under construction for years and is intentionally being completed this month to make the biggest media splash possible for Xi’s visit.

• China and El Salvador completed the second round of FTA negotiations earlier this month. The two sides started negotiations this spring.

  • The countries have reportedly already agreed to texts on “trade in goods, technical barriers to trade, temporary entry of people, competition, environment, cooperation in rules and dispute resolution.”

  • China already has FTAs with several LAC countries, namely: Nicaragua, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica. Honduras is also in the midst of FTA negotiations, while Panama has recently expressed interest in restarting talks.

• Canada’s industry minister forced TikTok to close down its offices responsible for “selling advertising and providing technical support and development for the app” in Vancouver and Toronto. The Chinese app will remain available in the country for now.

  • This comes as Canada’s signals intelligence agency said that China was the greatest state cyber threat to the North American nation.

  • From the PRC’s hostage-taking of the two Michaels to Chinese interference in Canada’s elections, Beijing and Ottawa have had a tense relationship over the past few years. This move will likely only further hurt bilateral relations.

Core Brief

What Trump’s potential new Secretary of State thinks about China-LAC

The New York Times is reporting that Trump will likely nominate Florida Senator Marco Rubio as his next Secretary of State. The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio would be the first Latino in the role. Given the state he represents and his family’s background, it’s safe to say he has no shortage of thoughts about U.S. policy in the region.

Aside from his obvious disdain for Washington’s Latin American adversaries (namely Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela), Rubio would bring a long track record of worrying over China’s influence in LAC.

If he’s confirmed, expect Rubio to frequently travel to the region (including replicating Pompeo’s decision to travel to lesser-visited destinations for a Secretary of State, like Guyana and Suriname). On these trips, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t constantly frame the U.S. as in competition with China in the region and express support for Taiwan.

If he becomes Washington’s top diplomat, a few of his concerns that are likely to come up over and over again include:

PRC support for regional dictatorships

Rubio has complained about Cuba’s “long history of intelligence and military cooperation with the communist government of China,” and he warned way back in 2016 about Chinese signal intelligence bases on the island. He’s similarly castigated Chinese economic assistance for Venezuela and proposed sanctions on Chinese firms operating in the country.

Though significant rapprochement with most of these countries is probably unlikely, expect China’s influence to play a part in Washington’s tense ties with these dictatorships.

Sino-LAC commercial engagement

In the Senate, Rubio has held hearings and expressed concerns over Chinese commercial engagement across the region. This includes making the common (and largely unsubstantiated) accusation about PRC “debt-trap” diplomacy in infrastructure projects.

But he’s also made more specific warnings, such as this op-ed where he warns LAC countries against using advanced Chinese technologies, like Huawei’s 5G equipment, and encourages them to buy Western technologies instead.

When Rubio tours the region, expect a lot more talk about encouraging U.S. investment and trade in the region specifically to compete with similar Chinese projects.

China’s Mexico trade

With the “tariff man” back in power, expect a lot more hoopla about Chinese trade circumvention through Mexico. Just a couple of months ago, Rubio joined his colleagues in a letter calling for new trade actions on Mexican exports in part “to stop China from ‘exploiting’ the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.”

Between the 2026 USMCA review, and concerns about Mexico’s democratic backsliding, migration, and drug trafficking, there’s more than enough on the U.S.-Mexico relationship’s plate. But with Rubio in charge in Foggy Bottom, Washington’s worries about Chinese investment and circumvention in Mexico certainly won’t be overlooked.

Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners

Rubio has been a stalwart supporter of Taiwan by calling the island a “strong ally of the United States” and by introducing multiple bills on U.S.-Taiwan ties, including “the Taiwan Relations Reinforcement Act, Taiwan Peace Through Strength Act, and a resolution commemorating 45 years of the Taiwan Relations Act.”

Furthermore, he was one of the authors of the TAIPEI Act, which “authorizes the State Department to downgrade U.S. relations with any government that takes adverse actions concerning Taiwan,” namely when a country flips recognition to Beijing.

As someone who wrote the bill1, Rubio will likely take full advantage of the TAIPEI Act’s provisions. If any of Taiwan’s seven remaining regional diplomatic partners or its seven unofficial partners kick out Taiwan’s diplomats, expect the United States to swiftly suspend foreign assistance or downgrade relations with that country. Moreover, Rubio may even try to encourage regional partners to establish new unofficial Taiwanese trade offices or even flip recognition back to Taipei.

A port? In a commercially strategic area? What will the Chinese think up next?

I’m sorry, but I simply can’t resist a silly quote. In a story about the new Peruvian port of Chancay this week, U.S. General Laura Richardson told the Financial Times that:

“If you look at all the countries which have these [Chinese] projects, they just happen to be around all these strategic . . . locations or sea lines of communication for global commerce... You have to ask yourself: ‘why all this investment in these kinds of things?’”

The remarks drew understandably some ridicule online. Without further harping, I just want to underscore that whether or not SOUTHCOM is legitimately concerned that the Port of Chancay is a security threat, making comments about how it is questionable that Chinese companies invest in commercially strategic areas doesn’t make their alarm bells credible.

Yes, Chinese companies certainly are influenced more by politics and the CCP’s political direction than most companies. But these companies are also just companies. And companies invest and try to make money! Sometimes a port investment is trying to capture a lucrative maritime commercial opportunity, and the failure of U.S. companies to invest in similar projects2 is a failure of U.S. industry, not a reflection of nefarious Chinese aims.

Ultimately, if SOUTHCOM wants to make the case that the Port of Chancay is some plot to undermine U.S. security in the Western Hemisphere, then it’s on U.S. officials to do more than hand-wave about the commercial importance of Peru’s coastline.

Raising alarm bells over Chinese companies making optimal economic decisions — all while U.S. companies fail to step up — undermines U.S. and SOUTHCOM’s credibility if a true threat to U.S. interests emerges. One of the Biden Administration’s best foreign policy decisions was to pre-empt Russian disinformation before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, with U.S. intelligence. If or when SOUTHCOM has tangible evidence, they’ll need to be similarly specific and credible to convince the public. Otherwise, vague statements will make them seem like they’re just crying wolf.

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The Roundup

“I was in Panama between 1979 and 1983 and I think I was one of the closest friends that General Omar Torrijos had, which allowed me to promote the arrival of many Chinese companies to that territory”

Former Chinese diplomat in Latin America Xu Yicong, per an interview

Politics and Security

• Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Grenada joined 80 other countries in a statement calling for “respect of China’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity,” including a specific reference to China’s record on human rights and Xinjiang.

• In cooperation with the Chinese embassy, the Ecuadorian National Police inaugurated its second Mandarin training course “to facilitate communication with Chinese residents.”

• The governor of San Luis Potosí, Ricardo Gallardo, met with the PRC ambassador to discuss Chinese investment in the Mexican state, while China opened a new visa application service center in Mexico City in response to increased demand for visas to the PRC.

• The Honduran Foreign Minister discussed sports cooperation, specifically through investing in new “first-level sports infrastructure,” with the Chinese Ambassador. Later, Ambassador Yu Bo sat down with the Minister of Defense to review “the progress of several projects.”

• Zhao Leji, China's top legislator, talked with the President of the Cuban National Assembly, Esteban Lazo Hernández, in Beijing about political exchanges and the rule of law. (Xinhua)

Investment, infrastructure, and finance

• The Brazilian Ministry of Communications (MCom) met with a delegation from China's National Data Administration signed an MOU on the “deployment of infrastructure and development of digital transformation, but also the Internet of Things (IoT) and new technologies.”

• Panama’s President received the Chinese Ambassador in early November to discuss ways to increase PRC investment in the country, specifically focusing on: logistics and infrastructure sectors, renewable energy and green technology, tourism, real estate development, telecommunications, and agriculture.

• Spanish firm Grenergy signed a strategic agreement with CATL. The Chinese battery company will supply batteries to the company’s solar project in the Atacama desert in Chile.

Trade and Technology

• Shanghai hosted the 7^th International Import Exhibition of China (ICIE), with numerous Latin American countries hosting pavilions, including Brazil, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Argentina. (People’s Daily)

  • On the sidelines, the Venezuelan firm Grupo San Simón signed an agreement with Hai Shu Xing Shuo to export dairy products to China, while Colombia’s commerce minister toured Chinese firms like Huawei, BYD, and SAIC.

• Outgoing Uruguayan President Lacalle Pou admitted that his government had failed to convince Mercosur to earnestly pursue and achieve deeper trade ties with China.

• After years of Sino-Canadian tensions, Air Canada will increase its number of flights to China, with a relaunched daily Vancouver-to-Beijing route and increased service to Shanghai.

• Maduro’s Minister of National Trade discussed expanding access to cheap basic food items in Venezuela with the local Chamber of Commerce of Chinese Companies.

Taiwan

• The head of the Paraguayan Senate visited Taipei, where he discussed Paraguay’s international support for Taiwan and technology cooperation with President Lai and the head of Taiwan’s legislature. The two sides also renewed a tourism agreement.

• The Canadian House of Commons unanimously passed a resolution “stating that UN Resolution 2758 does not establish the People’s Republic China’s (PRC) sovereignty over Taiwan and has not determined Taiwan’s future participation in the UN.”

  • This resolution is part of a larger effort by Taiwan, the United States, and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China to rebut China’s interpretation of Resolution 2758.

• Taiwan and Guatemala announced several new cooperation projects, including “extension of the CA-09 North road, a specialized hospital for cancer patients, and support in medical technology for the improvement of maternal and child health.”

• St. Vincent signed an MOU with the Taiwanese Overseas Engineering and Construction Company (OECC) for the Acute Referral Hospital at Arnos Vale project.

Culture and Society

• China and Peru signed an agreement on educational cooperation, such as textbook donations and scholarships to study in the PRC. A related agreement on food safety was also signed.

• The Cuban Minister of Public Health committed to enhancing public health, medical care, and medical technology cooperation with his Chinese counterpart.

• The Chinese ambassador attended the opening of a new children’s play park in Grenada after the country donated about $100 to the park’s construction.

• Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Co. Ltd. held a “Hybrid Pepper Breeding, Seed Production and Cultivation Techniques” in Antigua and Barbuda.

Analysis and Opinion

• Kirk Maltais argues in the Wall Street Journal that a new U.S.-China trade war could benefit Brazil’sagriculture exports.

• The Ecuadorian newspaper La Hora argued that the Noboa government has not published any details about its economic minister’s trip to China because the visit did not produce any tangible economic benefits for the country. The article blamed the PRC’s lack of interest in providing new lines of finance to the region.

• Lourdes Balconi Villaseñor wrote for the China Policy Observatory about the impact of Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin’s recent visit to the Caribbean Basin.

• Writing in the Financial Times, Christine Murray discusses a recent Rhodium report on how Chinese companies are increasingly using Mexico as an

• Huynh Tam Sang and Truong Tuan Kiet argue in the Diplomat that “China’s economic power and internal politics among Taiwan’s Latin American and Caribbean allies” are hurting Taiwan’s chances to hold onto its diplomatic allies.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Welcome to Chaufa, a China-Western Hemisphere Newsletter by CPSI.

Today’s edition covers October 15 to October 27.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• Russia hosted the BRICS summit, which prominently features both China and Brazil, in Kazan. Brazilian President Lula da Silva did not attend the event due to a recent injury. Leaders from Venezuelan and Bolivia, as well as Cuban ministers, also attended the summit, with Maduro briefly meeting with Xi for the first time since Maduro’s fraudulent election this summer. However, while Cuba and Bolivia were approved as BRICS candidates, Brazil rejected Venezuela’s bid to join the grouping.

  • Founded in 2009, the BRICS was originally made up of Brazil, China, Russia, India (South Africa joined in 2010). The group expanded for the first time since 2010 last year, and while Argentina was the only Latin American country poised to join the group, President Milei ultimately revoked his country’s plans to join the club at the last minute.

• As Cuba faces devastating blackouts, the Financial Times ran a major story on why China has failed to substantially prop-up Cuba’s economy, with the piece suggesting that “Chinese officials have been perplexed and frustrated at the Cuban leadership’s unwillingness to decisively implement a market-oriented reform program.” The frustration has led Chinese companies to cancel a contract for 400,000 tons of Cuban sugar a year.

  • That said, political ties continue to be close between the two communist countries, with Head of the CCP’s Publicity Department Li Shulei (李书磊) visited the island in late October for a socialist theory exchange and to meet with President Díaz-Canel. (Granma)

• Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) visited Guatemala to meet with senior officials, including President Bernardo Arévalo, as well as local businesses. His trip focused on four issues: agriculture, infrastructure, education, and ICT. Lin later traveled to St. Vincent for the country’s 45th independence anniversary celebrations. He will later travel to Belize from October 29-30, as well as St. Kitts and St. Lucia.

  • At the same time, a Taiwanese cybersecurity delegation went to Guatemala to discuss modernizing the state and enhancing cybersecurity.

  • The PRC foreign ministry used the visit as an excuse to urge Guatemala to establish formal relations with China and to break off ties with Taiwan.

• Officials from the Honduran energy ministry, the National Electric Energy Company (ENEE), and the Electricity Regulatory Commission (CREE) traveled to China to discuss possible new generation, transmission, and energy storage projects.

  • The trip resulted in an agreement between ENEE and Power China on “104MW Patuca III hydroelectric plant, the completion of the feasibility studies of Patuca II A (150MW) and a study of the entire electrical system of the Central American country.” It also resulted in an agreement with Chinese Windey Energy Technology Group for “an in-depth study of Honduran's potential for wind energy.”

  • Chinese firms started discussions on the Patuca III plant at least as early as 2012, and Power China started construction on the project in 2015, all about a decade before Tegucigalpa established ties with Beijing. (Xinhua) Because of this, these kinds of energy projects have been central to the Sino-Honduran relationship for years.

• A New York judge awarded Bahamas-based firm BML Properties Ltd a $1.6 million judgement against China Construction America (CCA) as part of the long-running Baha Mar hotel dispute. The judge argued that the Chinese firm had “committed fraud beyond any doubt.”

  • Though the Baha Mar hotel opened three years behind schedule in 2017, CCA had delayed the project for years to generate more fees for itself. This caused the project to temporarily collapse in 2015 at expense to the local economy.

Core Brief

A tense Cuba-China relationship is nothing new

Cuba’s faced a bit of a tough few weeks, with rolling blackouts leaving the country’s food and water supply in doubt. In the midst of all this, the Financial Times story on how Chinese officials are increasingly frustrated with their Cuban counterparts grabbed a lot of attention, with the article in particular noting that the PRC has failed to be a reliable partner in propping up the Cuban economy.

Though political relations between the two nations are quite warm in recent years, with the PRC officially calling Cuba “a good friend, good comrade, and good brother.” However, Beijing’s reticence to fully support the Cuban Communist Party isn’t all that new; rather, it’s been the historical norm for much of the bilateral relationship.

As the first country in the Western Hemisphere to recognize the PRC in 1960, Cuba’s early engagement with China was fairly positive. Symbolic of this friendship, in the early 1960s Fidel Castro was reportedly prone to arriving at the PRC embassy unannounced for Chinese food (El Comandante apparently had a taste for northern Chinese food, especially Peking duck). Aside from this culinary diplomacy, much of the Cuban-Chinese communist cooperation in the early 1960s centered on ideological exchange and sugar-for-rice swaps.

Yet despite these early positive interactions and the Cubans’ embrace of a Maoism-like peasant and guerrilla revolution, within less than a decade Castro and Mao were barely on speaking terms.

One reason for this sharp decline was the Cuban’s desire to provide a distinct theoretical example to LAC Communist movements.1 To say the least, this frustrated their PRC counterparts. The Chinese Communist Party had been at the vanguard of the peasant revolutionary movement for years, so Guevara’s and Castro’s claims to a distinct theory of revolution both alienated and prompted ideological competition with their Asian comrades.

Possibly more important, Castro’s alignment with Moscow soured ties between Beijing and Havana. As the Sino-Soviet split heated up in the 1960s, the richer and more powerful USSR was more aligned with the Castro regime. A trade dispute over the sugar-for-rice swaps that led to the termination of party-to-party ties in 1966 and denunciations of the PRC by Castro (he once called Mao “a senile idiot”) further hurt Sino-Cuban relations.

Because of this, the USSR became Communist Cuba’s main backer through much of the Cold War. Nearly three quarters of Cuba’s trade was with the USSR by the 1980s. The PRC, by contrast, was often named as a foe of the Cuban regime, with Castro condemning Beijing’s 1979 invasion of Vietnam and calling Deng Xiaoping “a sort of caricature of Hitler.”

Relations only recovered in the 1990s after Tiananmen Square massacre isolated the PRC in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and President Jiang Zemin visited the island in 1993. Symbolic of these closer ties, it was also around this time that Castro re-started his habit of popping by the PRC embassy unannounced for Chinese food.

Though obviously relations have improved since the Cold War, Sino-Cuban relations have historically rested on shaky ground. While anemic Chinese investment and tangible support for Cuba isn’t solely due to these long-standing historical issues, it certainly does not help Havana’s cause.

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The Roundup

This robust partnership that Jamaica enjoys with China is most evident through our people-to-people connections... Truly, we are out of many, one people”

Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kamina Johnson Smith, per remarks at a banquet

Politics and Security

• China donated $7 million in vehicles and security equipment to the Peruvian foreign ministry in preparation for this November’s APEC Leader’s Summit in Lima.

• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified to the public inquiry on Chinese interference in Canada’selections. He accused several conservative parliamentarians of being involved in foreign interference and revealed that his office had intervened to keep an MP who benefited from Chinese interference off a China-focused committee.

• Bolivia and the PRC held the 10^th Political Consultation Mechanism Meeting in Beijing, though contrary to the name the meeting largely focused on exporting Bolivian chia seeds, science, technology, and renewable energy.

• The governor of the Argentine province of Santa Cruz traveled to Beijing to meet with the president of China Gezhouba Group Company (CGGC), the main shareholder of the controversial Jorge Cepernic and Néstor Kirchner mega-dams, while the mayor of Ushuaia met with China’s ambassador to discuss possible commercial, tourism, and infrastructure cooperation.

  • Chinese firms had previously sought to establish ports in the southern tip of Argentina, which some have suggested was part of a Chinese strategy to establish a military facility near Antarctica and the Strait of Magellan.

• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a high-level Brazilian delegation led by Lula’s Chief of Staff, Rui Costa, in Beijing. (People’s Daily)

Investment, infrastructure, and finance

• While Brazil’s Agriculture Minister suggested that his country should join China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Lula’s closest foreign policy advisor, Celso Amorim, later said that Brazil wouldn’t seek to officially join the BRI.

  • Aside from Colombia (which is currently negotiation accession to the BRI), Brazil is one few Latin American countries outside of the initiative.

• Suriname’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Albert Ramdin, said that his country would welcome more Chinese investment in the country’s oil and gas sector.

• President Milei’s administration announced it would privatize the Argentine Belgrano Cargas rail network, which Chinese companies have invested billions of dollars into. Some observers questioned whether Chinese firms may then ultimately choose to purchase the privatized network.

Trade and Technology

• Following through from an MOU signed in 2019, the PRC donated a satellite system worth $3 million to Uruguay to monitor extreme weather events due to climate change. Meanwhile, Chinese firm SpaceSail said it will offering low-orbit internet in Brazil.

• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum promised to have a “good relationship” with China, even without a free trade agreement, while her ambassador in Washington told investors that the United States was a greater priority for his country than China.

  • These comments come as the Senate President met with Politburo member and the CCP’s Publicity Department’s head Li Shulei in Mexico City to discuss combatting poverty, technological exchange, and media exchange between Xinhua and the Mexican Congressional Channel.

• Chinese and Colombian aviation officials met at the ICAO Global Facilitation Forum in Bogotá to discuss possible direct flights from Beijing to Bogota.

• China and Venezuela held a commercial dialogue on October 18 in Caracas as part of Beijing’s ongoing commitment to the Maduro regime. The forum largely discussed Venezuelan seafood and agriculture exports. (CGTN)

• Peru and China held the 6^th meeting of the Strategic Dialogue Mechanism on Economic Cooperation, where the two sides covered a wide-range of issues, including: “infrastructure, mining, manufacturing and industrial parks, energy, strengthening information connectivity and deepening of strategic integration.”

Taiwan

• Paraguay’s president met with a delegation from the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute for North America to discuss possible semiconductor investments in the South American country, while the Paraguayan space agency announced it will sign a new cooperation agreement with Taiwan’s space agency.

• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines signed a contract with Taiwanese firm OECC for “a state-of-the-art Acute Referral Hospital at Amos Vale.”

Culture and Society

• First Secretary of the National Women's Federation of China and CCP Central Party Committee member Huang Xiaowei sat down with the President of Nicaragua’s National Assembly to discuss gender equality, combatting poverty, and people-to-people exchanges. (CGTN)

  • Huang later traveled to the Dominican Republic to meet with that country’s Supérate program, as well as various other party and local officials. (CGTN)

• Three notable forums were recently held: the People’s Daily held the China-Latin America and the Caribbean Media Cooperation Forum 2024 in Brazil, the China-LAC people-to-people friendship forum welcomed delegations to Xi’an, and the China-Latin America Civilizational Dialogue Forum was held by the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Foreign Affairs Office of the Government of Jiangsu Province in Chile.

  • The CCP also reportedly invited regional leftist parties to attend a forum in Beijing in early December.

• Argentina’s legislature approved an agreement with China signed back in 2018 that would prevent and fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural goods.

• China donated $20 million to Dominica to build new housing, with the prime minister saying that the “cash injection will benefit contractors and suppliers of building materials.”

• The University of Havana opened a new liaison office in Hangzhou “to promote educational, cultural exchange and economic cooperation between China and Cuba.”

Analysis and Opinion

• The Inter-American Dialogue ran a piece on how Ecuador’s debt to the PRC has affected Sino-Ecuadorian relations, with Jiang Shixue, Margaret Myers, and Evan Ellis commenting.

• AS/COA ran a piece by Chase Harrison on which Latin American leaders have visited China in recent years.

• The Wall Street Journal ran a notable story by Ryan Dubé on illegal and unsustainable Chinese fishing off the Peruvian coast.

• The Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times ran two notable pieces: one on how Mexico can benefit from autos cooperation with China, while another by Tiago Nogara argues that Latin America is rejecting the “US’ ‘new cold war’ narrative.”

• Following this week’s summit, Ryan Berg, Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Rubi Bledsoe, and Henry Ziemer have a piece at CSIS about why some Latin American countries are looking to join the BRICS group.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇

Welcome to Chaufa, a China-Western Hemisphere Newsletter by CPSI.

Today’s edition covers September 30 to October 14.

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The Top 5 Stories:

• During a trip to Beijing, Foreign Minister (and former Ambassador to the United States) Luis Gilberto Murillo announced Colombia’s intention to join President Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by forming a bilateral working group to negotiate Bogota’s accession.

  • Also during the trip, Murillo discussed Taiwan and the country’s One China Policy with FM Wang Yi, while a conversation with the Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Jin Zhuanglong, resulted in talks about new energy vehicles (NEVs), green energy and artificial intelligence. (Xinhua) (People’s Daily)

• President of Argentina (and long-running China critic) Javier Milei confirmed he would travel to China in January 2025 to attend a planned Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) meeting. He also said that “I was very pleasantly surprised with China. It is a very interesting business partner, because it does not demand anything, the only thing they ask is that [we] do not bother them.”

  • This marks a slow-burning but notable policy shift for Milei. During the presidential campaign, he took a notable hardline against future relations with Beijing, saying “I'm not going to do business with China. I'm not going to do business with any communist.”

• Peruvian fishermen went on strike to protest Chinese ships entering Peru’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Partially in response, the Peruvian Ministry of Production issued a decree mandating that “foreign vessels must have a satellite control system on board to enter” Peru’s waters. The fishermen blame a shortage of squid on the Chinese fishing boats’ intrusion into Peruvian waters, though the Ministry of Production attributed the shortage to the El Niño phenomenon.

  • Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by Chinese fishermen has been a problem for South American countries for years. While they have set up working groups and engaged diplomatically with the PRC to address the issue, local fishermen remain concerned about the effects of large Chinese fleets near their waters.

• The Panamanian Minister of Commerce suggested that his country might restart FTA negotiations with China by 2025. The Panamanians hope that a new treaty could open up new meat export opportunities for the country’s farmers.

  • For example, the President of Panama’s National Pig Farmers Association contrasted a possible PRC agreement with the existing U.S.-Panama trade promotion agreement when he said “A treaty with China must be beneficial; it would give us an opportunity that the U.S. will not.”

  • This news follows months of hints by Panamanian and Chinese officials that they may restart some kind of trade negotiations under newly-inaugurated President José Raúl Mulino.

• The PRC company CCCC loaned about $70 million to the Nicaraguan Company of Aqueducts and Sanitary Sewerage (Enacal) to build a solar plant in the Nicaraguan town of Masaya. The project brings Nicaragua’s external debt to the PRC to nearly $1 billion.

  • Since Managua and Beijing established ties in late 2021, relations have rapidly deepened with a new FTA and numerous infrastructure projects. This solar plant is just the latest sign of this growing relationship.

Core Brief

Let’s not make a mountain out of molehill over Milei’s China visit

When Argentine President Javier Milei remarked that he’d be visiting China early next year for a CELAC meeting, a number of specialists made hay out of Milei’s U-turn. A LinkedIn post by DC-based analyst Edward Owen is emblematic of this kind of thought, with these folks suggesting that Milei’s upcoming travel to China was more a political,1 rather than economic, pivot reflective of U.S. policy failures.

To quote Owen, he thinks that Milei’s travel represents how “Washington DC has[n’t] managed to capitalize on his natural affections for the United States” and that “internal ideological division in the United States” is hampering its “ability to win geopolitical micro-competitions, such as the one taking place over Argentina at present.”

Frankly, this is a bit over the top.

First of all, the U.S. government would probably be the first to dispute that a country’s engagement with China reflects some failure in competition with the United States. Many U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of the Treasury Yellen, have gone out of their way to tell U.S. allies and partners that no one has to “choose” between the U.S. and China.2

Second, contrary to what Owens suggests, Milei’s comments really are about economics. How do I know ? Well, when he announced his trip, he also said China “is a very interesting business partner, because it does not demand anything, the only thing they ask is that [we] do not bother them.”

Moreover, due to the actions of prior Argentine administrations, China is simply too wrapped up in Argentina’s economy for him to ignore Beijing. From China’s multi-billion-dollar currency swap to massive investments in the country’s extractive sectors to trading more than $24 billion in goods and services, it would be economically suicidal for Milei to rip-up his country’s ties to the PRC. For now, this is just economic reality — the same economic reality that has kept China as one of the United States’ top trading partners.3

Lastly, regarding the travel itself, folks are really reading too far into it.

First, for now it’s just for a China-CELAC meeting, not a stand-alone state visit that merits a lot of hoopla.4 Sure, Milei could have skipped the event (much like he did with Mercosur), but it could have repercussions beyond just his country’s relationship with the PRC.

Second, just because a leader travels to the PRC doesn’t mean that it reflects a disdain for the United States or a deep admiration for the Chinese Communist Party. German Chancellor Scholz was in Beijing this past April, while UK Foreign Minister David Lammy is headed there just over 100 days into the new Labour government’s tenure. No one is suggesting that this reflects the United States losing a “micro-competition” with China over Germany or the UK.

Much like Bolsonaro (and most nearly every other democratically-elected leader who pooh-poohs China on the campaign trail), Milei came into office and realized that a country of 1 billion people was too big to ignore. This truly was a notable policy shift from the campaign. But when considering Argentina’s long-standing economic relationship with China, it’s no wonder that Milei ultimately decided to hold some face-to-face talks in Beijing. To say that this some failure of U.S. policy5 or a reflection of a new Argentine pivot to Beijing would simply be a gross exaggeration.

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The Roundup

Politics and Security

• A delegation of 12 Paraguayan legislators traveled to China (despite Paraguay’s diplomatic relations with Taiwan) to discuss culture and literature at the University of Sichuan. (CGTN)

• The deputy head of China’s legislature, Tie Ning, traveled to Mexico to discuss economic exchange and Mexico’s judicial reform with the President of the Mexican Senate Gerardo Fernández Noroña.

• Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez discussed working towards a new “political and economic world order” with the PRC’s ambassador.

• China’s Ambassador to Barbados, Yan Xiusheng, met with the Caribbean country’s Chief Justice and Foreign Minister as he prepares to depart his post.

Investment, infrastructure, and finance

• Guyana’s Vice President ruled out banning Chinese supermarkets from the country after some locals expressed “concerns that the increasing number of [Chinese] supermarkets is outcompeting their nearby locally-owned counterparts with cheaper prices.”

• Chinese firm Yadea said it would build an $80 million electric bike and motorcycle final assembly plant in Mexico. It also has its sights on expanding investment into Brazil in the future.

• The Chinese Ambassador to Honduras said that the Central American country was focused on generating PRC investment in the “textile industry, renewable energy and construction.”

Trade and Technology

• The PRC General Customs Administration (GCA) announced that it had re-permitted Chilean poultry farmers to export to China. The GCA has banned Chilean poultry exports in August 2023 over avian flu concerns.

• A Chinese deputy science minister, as well as representatives from the Chinese Academy of Science, the National Foundation of Natural Science and technological universities  traveled to Cuba to meet with the country’s PM and science minister for the 13^th Joint Science and Technology Commission in Havana.

• Panama’s Center for Innovation in Space Sciences (Cenacep) signed an agreement with China's Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) to launch exchange, training and training programs for Panamanian scientists and students.

• The Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Company hosted Antigua and Barbuda Shadow Agriculture Minister Algernon Watts for a three-week trip to discuss cultivating hybrid corn and peppers using advanced agricultural techniques.

Taiwan

• After the leader of Belize’s opposition abstained from a resolution on “Belize’s celebration of its 35th year of friendship with Taiwan,” Moses Shyne Barrow later made a statement that he “felt grateful... for all that Taiwan has done for both UDP and PUP governments.”

• Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn announced that they will build their “largest [computer] chip plant on the planet” to build Nvidia’s GB200 superchips in Jalisco, Mexico.

• The Paraguayan Senate approved a $150 million non-refundable financial contribution from Taiwan that will be used to support areas like security and defense, social housing, public health, and science and technology.

• Belize received $20,000 from Taiwan to “support two micro-projects aimed at managing illegal wildlife trafficking and trade within the Belize Forest Department.”

• The Deputy Prime Ministers of St. Vincent and Belize, as well the Guatemalan First Lady, attended the ROC National Day celebrations in Taiwan on October 10. The speakers of St. Lucia’s Senate and House of Assembly also visited the island and met with President Lai.

Culture and Society

• Following several similar stories by other newspapers, the Economist reported from Mexico and Colombia about Chinese migrants passing through Latin America as they seek a better life in the United States.

• The PRC opened a new Confucius Institute in Mendoza, Argentina. The institute, which will be held at the University of Congress, will be part of a joint exchange program with Nanjing Normal University.

• The University of Chile received a delegation from the Chinese Academy of Sciences to discuss astronomy, environmental crisis, energy, and food security cooperation.

• Los Tiempos has an article about the impact of Chifas (local Chinese restaurants) on Bolivian tastes and cuisine.

Analysis and Opinion

• Writing in Foreign Affairs, Alexander Gabuev and Oliver Stuenkel discuss the competing visions for the future of BRICS (a group that includes both Brazil and China).

• A new article in Dialogue Earth by Matt Sandy looks into whether Brazil is increasingly looking into joining China’s signature Belt and Road Intiative.

• Evan Ellis wrote a piece for InfoBae on Chile’s growing defense relationship with China, arguing that “the decisions that the democratic and principled government of Boric in Chile will make in the coming months regarding its military relationship with the PRC will be important for the way the country defines itself.”

• A commerce-focused Peruvian civil society organization, COMEX Peru, published a report on Chinese FDI and trade with the South American country, finding that exports to China make up more than a third of the country’s total sales.

• Arturo McFields wrote about how “Mexico, the main U.S. trading partner, cannot keep positioning itself to become the Trojan horse of the Chinese empire” for the Hill.

That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!

Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇