Filling the Void
Grenada's PM wraps up his trip in China, Nicaragua agrees to train officials with CCP, Brazilian soy exports to the PRC. Plus: Chinese New Year in LAC.
Welcome to Chaufa, a China-Western Hemisphere Newsletter by CPSI.
Today’s edition covers January 14 to January 26.
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.
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 👇
While it is possible the Chinese Embassy engaged in the parade in some way, the event’s press release notably declined to include a reference to the PRC government.