Books

The boundless seas

Paul French with some notable tomes on the world’s oceans

Today, China is Latin America’s top trading partner. Of course, China had always traded with the region but in recent years things have become more focused. In 2019, Chinese companies invested $12.8bn in Latin America, up 16.5% from 2018, concentrating on regional infrastructure such as ports, roads, dams and railways. Chinese purchases of minerals and agricultural commodities helped South America stave off the worst privations of the 2008 financial crisis. And Covid19 has only accentuated the relationship with China as a key customer and investor helping to keep embattled countries afloat. So, understanding the Latin America- China trade relationship is important. A few titles that may help are below.

Maybe a good place to start is a general book on the region and Fernando Calderon and Manuel Castells’ The New Latin America is a very useful guide. Moving from country to country the book examines the twin forces of widespread inequality and poverty, which have triggered social explosions as opposed to technological modernisation and the emergence of new middle class consumer groups. Where Chinese investment, trade and influence fits within these new societies morphing between old identities and new is a particular strength of the book. After reading The New Latin America and gaining some familiarity with the region it’s time to dive a little deeper.

China-Latin America and the Caribbean: Assessment and Outlook by European editors Thierry Kellner and Sophie Wintgens is perhaps a little academic but useful for those deep-diving the Latin America/China relationship. Much more has been written on the China-Africa relationship and in many key respects the Latin AmericaChina relationship is the same, but different. The emergence of new forms of dependence based to a degree on the deindustrialisation phenomenon throughout Latin America that allows space for Chinese investment. Similarly it considers Latin America as a zone where China and the United States are engaged in a highly competitive game for influence in the region.

Looking particularly at Chinese finance and investment in the region is Stephen B Kaplan’s Globalizing Patient Capital: The Political Economy of Chinese Finance in the Americas. Kaplan argues that China’s “patient capital” (another way of saying long term investing) endows national governments with more room to manoeuvre in formulating domestic policies. Though the author also notes that Chinese lenders may not react well to developing Latin American nations’ ongoing struggles with debt and dependency. Kaplan believes that by looking at how China is investing in the region we can see a new form of globalisation showing the costs and benefits of state versus market approaches to development.

And finally, China’s investments in Latin America have spawned some push back from the US. To understand why Washington is wary of Beijing, what it might do to counter growing Chinese influence and how Beijing may, in turn, respond to that the multi-authored Countering China in Latin America and Africa on Trade: A United States Foreign Policy Perspective is a useful collection of essays to mull over when considering the bigger question of the region’s trade relationships. ●