What China Isn't in Latin America

Mark Weisbrot makes the case that China may be a source of stability for Latin America, especially Venezuela and Argentina, because with lines of credit it can ease currency problems. Whether or not that would actually be enough is open to debate, but at least it's debatable.

What's not so debatable, though, is to assert that China basically has no power ambitions and just wants a strong United Nations and an emphasis on international law. The extent to which China does not criticize human rights abroad, for example, is directly related to its desire not to have the UN or anyone else actually cite international law for the Chinese government's treatment of its own people. Its main interest in Latin America, moreover, is economic. China has slowed recently, but has been sucking needed commodities out of Latin America. That's not about brotherhood, but rather a state looking out for its own interests, as we would expect.

We can debate what China is in Latin America: opportunity, threat to U.S. hegemony, neutral, whatever. But it isn't a benevolent partner in a shared utopian vision of world order.