As Chinese trade and investment with Latin America expand, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is accumulating interests in the region. Whatever Chinese intentions toward Latin America may be, the dilemma of when and how to defend these interests is likely to occupy a significant part of the PRC agenda in the region in the coming decades, and to affect China's relationship with the United States as well. This article identifies six emerging Chinese interests in Latin America, and discusses why, and how the PRC may struggle to defend them. These interests are: (1) Access to markets and the fight against protectionism, (2) Protection of investments and contracts, (3) Repayment of loans, (4) Protection of resource flows, (5) Protection of Chinese nationals and operations in the region, and the (6) Isolation of Taiwan.
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China's engagement with Latin America on satellites, space launch, and space technology is limited, but expanding rapidly, following the logic that China has followed in other strategically important sectors of incrementally building relationships, and leveraging initial opportunities to develop and prove capabilities. This article analyzes China's expanding relationship with Latin America in the arena in terms of four countries: (1) those with limited space capabilities not actively pursuing space programs, with whom the PRC has few space-related ties, (2) populist regimes such as Venezuela and Bolivia purchasing complete packages of PRC satellite systems and launch services, (3) other countries developing space capabilities, where China has sought to be a service provider or technology partner, including Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, and (4) Brazil as an emerging regional power with a multidimensional space program, which has cooperated with the PRC in both satellite development and launch through the CBERS program. In general, by leveraging business opportunities with Brazil and populist regimes of the region, the PRC is gaining a foothold in the commercial satellite and launch services market, with Chinese equipment, personnel, and space systems becoming part of Latin America's infrastructure, with significant implications for the US and the region.
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This essay analyzes the relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Colombia in the strategic context of the region. It begins with an analysis of why growing relations between China and the region are a key security and defense issue, despite the mainly economic nature of the relationship. It continues with an analysis of China's strategic interests in Colombia within the framework of general interests in the region, which include access to primary products, access to markets, isolating Taiwan, and fostering a secure environment for China's rise in the world. He concludes that relations between Colombia and the People's Republic of China in recent years have been primarily commercial in nature, with multiple strategic implications for Colombia, including the evolution of its trade structure, the increase in human trafficking, and the indirect empowerment of irregular forces and external threats in its neighborhood, and that China-Colombia-US relations should be understood as a triangle in which the development of one party impacts the others, but with opportunities to collaborate, including defense and criminality issues that involve the entire region.
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