A Need to Learn
A Need to Learn
FTA progress in Panama and El Salvador, new Canadian tariffs, and Guyanese and Surinamese legislative leaders in Beijing. Plus: a look at Taiwan's ambassadors in the Caribbean.
Welcome to Chaufa, a China-Western Hemisphere Newsletter by CPSI.
Today’s edition covers August 19 to September 1.
Listen on Spotify or read the full edition below:
The Top 5 Stories:
The PRC had several notable Free Trade Agreement (FTA) updates this week:
A year after Bukele announced his intention to pursue an FTA, El Salvador and China officials met for their first round of trade negotiations in Beijing. They reportedly discussed the broad objectives of negotiations.
Chinese trade official Li Xingqian during a commercial promotion trip to Panama claimed that the Panamanian government expressed interest in restarting Free Trade Agreement negotiations.
The FTA early-harvest agreement with Honduras went into effect on September 1.
Despite lacking diplomatic ties, Paraguay’s president said that he was “fully open” to pursuing an FTA with China as part of a broader Mercosur pact. However, the Taiwan Foreign Ministry said that ties with Asuncion were still “rock solid” despite the comments.
Canada announced it will impose a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs and a 25% duty on Chinese steel and aluminum. The PRC accused Ottawa of “protectionism” and initiated an anti-dumping investigation into Canadian canola oil exports in response.
The action follows similar moves by the European Union and United States. It comes as governments around the world increasingly express concern about Chinese overcapacity.
President Xi met with members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Beijing to discuss the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and bilateral legislative ties. Regional officials attending the meeting included Marinus Bee, the Chairman of Suriname's National Assembly; Manzoor Nadir, the Speaker of Guyana’s National Assembly; and Barbados backbencher Edmund Gregory Hinkson. (Xinhua) (China Daily)
Though Inter-Parliamentary Union includes nearly every country on the planet (sans the United States), Xi used the opportunity to meet with global legislators to lean into the PRC’s connection with the developing world. The president was notably quoted as saying “We are all members of the Global South.”
Honduran opposition leader and possible presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla said he would re-establish relations with Taiwan if he were elected next year. He specifically cited Honduras’s reduced levels of shrimp exports to the PRC. In response, the ROC foreign ministry said that it welcomed any “opportunity” to enhance ties.
President Castro closed Tegucigalpa’s embassy in Taipei in spring 2023. Since then, Honduras has pursued an FTA and new investments from the PRC. However, relations haven’t been completely rosy, as lower prices and Chinese demand for Honduran shrimp (compared to previously reliable Taiwanese purchases) has created pain for certain industries.
To me, the Taiwanese foreign ministry’s open-ended response suggests that they recognize that a country flipping back to Taipei (and thus cutting relations with Beijing) is a pretty high bar. The comment suggests that they are pragmatically open to establishing a Taiwanese trade office (TECO) in the country to at least re-establish unofficial ties.
The PRC continued to defend Venezuela’s fraudulent election results, with the foreign ministry saying “The Venezuelan people’s choice should be respected and Venezuela’s right to independently choose [its] development path should be respected.” (FMPRC)
As discussed in the last edition, China has been a reliable ally for Maduro because of China’s demand for Venezuelan oil, their close ideological ties, and the CCP’s aversion to condemning authoritarian practices that it itself uses. Unless the Venezuelan opposition gains power and the domestic situation in Venezuela changes on its own, the PRC will continue reliably backing Maduro’s growing repression.
Core Brief
Who’s Taiwan sending to the Caribbean?
Earlier this summer, I looked at the types of diplomats that China sends to head its 11 Caribbean embassies. The long and short of it was that rather than sending Caribbean-focused experts with lots of experience in the region to head its embassies, China’s foreign ministry often sends its mid-career rising stars who later go on to bigger postings in the Western Hemisphere. For this mostly male, mostly mid-50s cohort, Caribbean embassies are the first ambassadorship after a career focusing on other regions, such as the Middle East, Asia, Europe, or Africa.
Of course, China doesn’t have an embassy in every Caribbean country – five countries’ relations with the Republic of China has prevented this. Given the extensive recent commentary on how Taiwan provides a vastly different partner than China,1 this provides an opportunity to compare how the two countries approach diplomacy in the Caribbean.2
The biggest difference comes in gender diversity. Though there’s a small sample size, the Taiwanese ambassadors are slightly more gender balanced than their Chinese counterparts. About 40% of the Taiwanese ambassador in the Caribbean are women, while only 27% of Chinese ambassadors are.3
That’s where the differences tend to end, however. By and large, the folks the Chinese foreign ministry chooses as their ambassadors have a lot of similarities to those selected by the Taiwanese MOFA.
Off the top, the current 11 Chinese ambassadors in the Caribbean have spent about 3 years in their role. Similarly, the present Taiwanese ambassadors have been in country for about 2.6 years on average.
Also much like the Chinese, most Taiwanese ambassadors have little-to-no experience in the Caribbean; Ambassador to St. Kitts & Nevis Michael C.H. Lin (林昭宏) is the only current ambassador who appears to have spent significant time in the region. Otherwise, most of the other current ambassadors have focused on Asia, the United States, or international organizations.
And similar to the PRC, an ambassadorship in the Caribbean is often (but not always) a stepping stone to a bigger post. For example, the current Representative to India (effectively the ambassador) Ge Baoxuan (葛葆萱) had previously served as an Ambassador to St. Vincent, while the Director at the TECRO in New York (effectively the consulate and UN affairs office there) Tom Chih-chiang Lee (李志強) had been the head of mission in St. Kitts.
That said, most of the more recent ambassadors to the Caribbean did not go on to head especially notable posts — many return to the foreign ministry office in Taipei to simply head other mid- to high-level positions. Since these are the few Taiwanese foreign ministry jobs that actually come with the title “ambassador” (because Taiwan has so few official diplomatic partners), this comes as a bit of a surprise. It provides further evidence that an ambassadorship in the Caribbean is simply a stepping stone, rather than a capstone, to a successful Taiwanese diplomatic career.
Taken altogether, while the Caribbean diplomatic allies are important to Taiwan, the lack of regional experience or highest-level seniority suggests that Taiwan treats its Caribbean postings much like other countries that have fewer concerns in the region. Though these Taiwanese diplomats are likely quite capable and professional, Taiwan’s unique relationship with its Caribbean partners has generally not translated to appointing its most senior diplomats or regional experts.
The Roundup
“China's digital technology, clean mining technologies and smart high-tech agriculture are amazing — that's what developing countries need to learn from China”
Barbados MP Edmund Gregory Hinkson, who recently traveled to China, per remarks to China Daily
Politics and Security
The US charge d’affaires and the Chinese ambassador to the Bahamas held a rare meeting on “US-Bahamas and China-Bahamas relations” as well as “practical cooperation with The Bahamas as well as international and regional issues of mutual interest.” (FMPRC)
A delegation from Hubei province visited the Argentine town of José C. Paz to promote “cooperation between the regions, strengthen cultural ties and deepen the pre-existing friendship,” while the mayor of Jiujiang (Jiangxi province) traveled to La Plata to meet with university officials.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System hosted a China-Latin America and Caribbean Development Forum in Beijing in late August.
Investment, infrastructure, and finance
The Honduran National Electric Energy Company (ENEE) said that Chinese firm DanaSun Energy will construct and operate a new $300 million 300 MW solar plant in Choloma. Meanwhile, China Energy Engineering Group sued ENEE for $130 million after its contract for a new power plant was terminated.
After Huawei and other Chinese telecoms were banned from Costa Rica, newly appointed Chinese ambassador to San Jose Wang Xiaoyao suggested that a new UN agreement could mollify Costa Rica’s data security concerns.
A Trinidad and Tobago opposition leader questioned why the government cancelled a China Harbour Engineering housing project, suggesting possible corruption or a scandal.
CRRC plans to build a $147 million hospital for neurosurgery in Santiago’s Providencia district in Chile.
Trade and Technology
China and Honduras held a business match-making conference in Tegucigalpa that led to $18 million in new business deals.
A Chinese business delegation led by the General Director of the Department of Foreign Trade, Li Xingqian, went to Nicaragua to meet with the Central Bank, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and the Secretariat of Investments and Exports. He later traveled to Panama to meet with local ministries and businesses and to sign a deal on new fish meal and coffee exports.
The Peruvian agriculture minister and the Chinese Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs met in Lima to discuss irrigation projects and developing new phytosanitary protocols for fruits like fresh pomegranates and pecans.
Taiwan
A commercial delegation of 19 Taiwanese businesses is visiting Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico as part of a regional tour.
Taiwan and Belize signed an MOU to extend a women’s empowerment program that will include interventions like “capacity building for men and boys.”
The ROC embassy donated 400 individual kits of protective equipment like helmets, tactical knee pads, eye protectors and bulletproof vests to Haiti’s national police and army.
The Taiwanese aid agency ICDF held a warehousing and logistics development course for regional diplomatic allies and partners, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Mexico, and St. Lucia.
St. Vincent received a Taiwanese donation of over 100 tons of rice in response to Hurricane Beryl. Taiwan’s Ambassador to St. Vincent, Fiona Huei-Chun Fan, and the local Assistant Commissioner of Police also discussed ICT cooperation at the the E-Bus and Security Operation Center.
Prime Minister Gonsalves defended the St. Vincent government’s decision to award a $100 million contract to Taiwan firm Overseas Engineering Construction Company (OECC) for the construction of the Acute Referral Hospital at Arnos Vale after the opposition “expressed concerns about the awarding of the contract to a single contractor rather than going back to tender.”
Culture and Society
More than 100 people attended the Chinese Associations of Central America and Panama meeting inCosta Rica on August 22, which was led by Ambassador Wang Xiaoyao and included a Miss China Central America and Panama pageant. Chinese associations are often part of the Chinese Communist Party’s broader United Front Work
The Bogota Metro Line 1 Consortium, which is led by Chinese firms, will send 40 young Colombians to study at the Xi'an Railway Systems Institute in China.
Juárez Autonomous University of Tabasco (UJAT) and Qinghai University signed an academic exchange agreement, while the Chinese state media agency Xinhua hosted a seminar on the “new quality productive forces” in the economic relationship between Mexico and China.
Panama started flying Chinese migrants back to the PRC as part of a broader deportation initiative in cooperation with the United States.
The Cuban University of Havana (UH) and several Chinese high schools announced a new education and joint research initiative.
Analysis and Opinion
Scott MacDonald writes in the East Asia Review that “Cuba is deepening its relationship with China... causing growing concern among US policymakers. Located less than 150 kilometers from the US mainland, Cuba may be a potential flashpoint in any future conflict.”
Writing for The Diplomat, Javier Meléndez argues that though China’s presence in Central America has expanded since 2017, these countries have faced “growing trade deficits and failed projects” rather than benefits from the relationship.
Anna Lagos writes for Wired about how Chinese businesses have positioned themselves as the main supplier to Mexico, generating concerns in Washington about the Southern Border becoming a “backdoor” to PRC goods.
The South China Morning Post has an article by Ji Siqi about growing local discontent with businesses opened and operated by Chinese immigrants in Mexico.
A new paper by Evan Ellis in the Journal of the Americas found that “the PRC engages in a distinct and often comprehensive manner with ideologically sympathetic governments [in Latin America] [which] yields strategic advantages, opportunities for expanding markets in military and digital technologies, and proves commercially lucrative for its companies, despite being accompanied by political and contractual perils.”
Stella Juste argues in Dialogue Earth that “In Argentina, less developed provinces facing a ‘double periphery’ situation have deepened their ties with China,” thus benefiting their economic development.
That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!
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Given the results below, I don’t mean to suggest that China and Taiwan are two sides of the same coin. When it comes to aid practices and diplomatic coercion, the Chinese and Taiwanese certainly run different playbooks. But this still provides an opportunity to better understand where Chinese and Taiwanese diplomacy overlaps.
Since Taiwan uniquely only has a dozen formal embassies (about half of which are in the Caribbean), I’d expect some differences from the outset since the Chinese have fewer roles with the formal title of “ambassador”.
This gender balance continues if you expand to the entire Western Hemisphere – Taiwan’s ambassador to Guatemala is a woman, while the head of mission in Paraguay is a man. This makes it about the same gender balance percentage in the whole region (42% female).