China continues to expand its footprint in Latin America: Xi Jinping inaugurates a mega port in Peru

Last week, wandering around an international import fair held in Shanghai, there were a dozen Latin American journalists invited by the Chinese government, which usually pays for long promotional trips to reporters from friendly countries, usually developing nations that are recipients. of large Chinese investments. Then, after spending, in some cases, a stay of up to six months tasting Chinese delicacies and doing flock tourism at Beijing’s expense, these journalists return to their countries ready to reveal in their media all the benefits of the regime that they have seen with their own eyes.

Winning the narrative battle is key in Chinese expansion through fiefdoms that were previously dominated by the influence of its great rival, the United States. Paid trips for journalists – they also usually bring many Africans and Middle Eastern countries – are part of that strategy.

It is no coincidence that among the guests at the Shanghai fair there was a Peruvian journalist just a week before President Xi Jinping traveled to Peru to participate in an international summit and, incidentally, inaugurate a mega port that was one of the projects star of the new Silk Road sponsored by the Chinese leader himself.

Xi, after a brief stopover in Gran Canaria, was received on Thursday in Lima by President Dina Boluarte. The first thing he did was inaugurate the port of Chancay, 70 kilometers from the Peruvian capital, which has been built thanks to Chinese investment, specifically from the Costo group with the support of a local company, worth 1.3 billion dollars.

Xi did not go to the port, but gave an inaugural speech in Lima in which he defined the project as a new maritime corridor between China and Latin America that will bring prosperity to Peru and the entire region, and that represented a “successful case of Chinese-Peruvian cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi, who will participate this weekend in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which will also be attended by outgoing US President Joe Biden, landed in Lima escorted by an important delegation that includes several bigwigs from the Beijing Politburo, as well as the head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi, and the ministers of Commerce and Finance.

After Peru, where Xi will also sign around thirty trade agreements with the Boluarte Government, the next stop for the Chinese delegation will be Brazil. There, the Chinese leader will attend the annual meeting of the G-20 and will have a separate reception with state honors by his counterpart Lula da Silva.

Second business partner

In Latin America, China is the second trading partner (the first counting only South America) after the US. Bilateral trade has increased from 18 billion dollars in 2002 to 450 billion in 2022. The Asian giant has free trade agreements with five countries and more than twenty projects underway under the umbrella of Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure plan, the new Silk Road, which has been joined by around twenty nations in the region.

Chinese companies have entered Argentina in search of rare earths to exploit the minerals so necessary for its high-tech industry, they buy crude oil in Venezuela and soybeans in Brazil, where renewable energy companies from the Asian power already control 17 of the 48 hydroelectric plants in this country, as well as 11 wind farms.

In Chile, Chinese electric vehicle company BYD won a contract to produce 80,000 metric tons of lithium over 20 years. According to an analysis carried out by AidData, a research center in the US, Chinese projects in the region have moved 286.1 billion dollars, including the construction of subway lines in Bogotá and Mexico City, as well as hydroelectric dams in Ecuador.

Xi’s walk these days coincides with information coming out of Washington that US Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, who has been chosen by Trump as Secretary of the State Department, will direct the foreign policy of Donald Trump’s government. . Rubio is one of the political figures most critical of China and has called for Washington to refocus on Latin America to counter Beijing’s growing influence. But in the Asian giant they are aware that they have gained a lot of ground given the great concern in the region with Trump’s aggressive rhetoric – and his plans for mass deportations – regarding migrants from that hemisphere.