China's Presence in Latin America

Stephen Kaplan at George Washington University has a post in the Monkey Cage asking whether the U.S. should be concerned about Chinese investment in Latin America. The argument is that Chinese economic activity in Latin America is mostly pragmatic and not ideological.

I agree and it's pretty uncontroversial among Latin Americanists at least (way back in 2009 ECLAC was openly calling for more!). He might downplay Chinese political interests a little too much (Taiwan does matter, for example) but the general point is that the alarmist "China is encroaching on our backyard" message is mostly unfounded. As I've pointed out as well, we need to keep Latin American agency in mind. Latin American leaders are not passively accepting Chinese investment--there are strategies, pushback, etc.

One point he makes that is especially worth noting is that China is actually defending an economic order that the U.S. is now starting to reject. It's been a weird year.

A final note: this seems to be the hot topic for 2018, which I predict we'll all be rather tired of by the end of the year.