Chinese Investment In Latin America Sectoral Complementarity And The Impact Of China S Rebalancing

Over the last decade China’s investment in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has increased substantially in volume and become more diversified from natural resources to other industries. Using cross-border mergers and acquisitions data, we demonstrate that since mid-2010s China’s overseas investment has tilted toward sectors where China has a comparative advantage in the global markets, a trend similar to that of other major foreign direct investment (FDI) source countries. Moreover, China’s rising overseas investment can be linked to the rebalancing of Chinese economy, and LAC stands to benefit from its complementarity vis-à-vis China in sectors where the rising Chinese overseas investment can be met with LAC’s own investment gaps. The COVID-19 pandemic could have a long-lasting impact on global value chains and FDI flows, which poses both challenges and opportunities to LAC in attracting FDI, including from China, to support the region’s long-run economic development.

China's role as an economic powerhouse in Latin America is reshaping a region on the cusp of development and change. Since the turn of the century, bilateral trade between China and Latin America has increased massively, going from $12.17 billion in 2000 to $307.94 billion in 2019. From the pampas of Argentina and the vast Brazilian Amazon to Panama's canal and Jamaica's coastal waters, China is financing roads, railways, dams and ports that are transforming regional economies and societies. Beyond China's global search for resources and markets, Bejing's engagement with Latin America is amplified by cutting-edge technologies and a growing assertiveness in regional diplomatic and military affairs. The United States, once complacent in its dominant position over its proverbial 'backyard', is increasingly alarmed by the spectacle of deepening Chinese involvement in this part of the Western hemisphere. What are we to make of these shifting dynamics? In this detailed and up-to-the-minute investigation, Chris Alden, author of the critically acclaimed China in Africa, and Alvaro Mendez, leading expert in the international relations of Latin America, look at the interests, strategies and practices of China's incoming power. The book starts by unpacking the historical links between Imperial China and Colonial Latin America through the 19th century, then turns to the revolutionary role played by Mao's China during the Cold War. Next, it turns to global China's contemporary expansion into Latin America by focusing on the development dimensions of engagement in individual countries, and concurrently, on the exercise of agency by Latin American governments and societies intent on managing Chinese interests to their advantage. Finally, the book addresses these relationships in the context of heightened global competition between China and the United States, which in Latin America manifests as sharpened contestation over everything from investment in lithium mining to the promotion of Covid vaccines.

Latin America and the Caribbean needs an ambitious and comprehensive investment agenda to embark on a stronger and more sustainable development trajectory. The 16th edition of the Latin American Economic Outlook proposes ways to make this possible through co-ordinated actions by policy makers, the private sector and international partners.

This book sets out to explore the new role of China in Brazilian politics and geopolitics. As China has become Brazil's biggest trade partner, Brazil's political economy has been transformed in subterranean ways, and China's role in the global economy has become a hot topic in Brazilian politics. By bringing into light a new generation of Brazilian scholars, this book seeks to consolidate the scholarship developed in the last decade and promote a new approach to Brazil-China relations, written from the perspective of the global south.

The economies of China and of the Latin America and the Caribbean region are the current global growth poles and, over the coming years, will grow twice or three times as quickly as the industrialised economies, which will have to adjust to slower growth and higher unemployment. The present juncture offers an opportunity to rethink global and regional partnership strategies and to put greater emphasis on South-South ties in trade, foreign direct investment FDI) and cooperation. In this document, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) posits that China and the Latin America and the Caribbean region now enjoy a sufficiently mature relationship and are poised to make a qualitative leap towards a mutually beneficial strategic alliance.

The coronavirus pandemic that has rocked China since December 2019 has posed a gruelling test for the resilience of the country’s national economy. Now, as China emerges from its Covid-induced “recession”, it feels like the worst is behind it. How did China manage to come out almost unscathed from the worst crisis in over a century?This Report examines how China designed and implemented its post-Covid recovery strategy, focussing on both the internal and external challenges the country had to face over the short- and medium-run.The book offers a comprehensive argument suggesting that, despite China having lost economic and political capital during the crisis, Beijing seems to have been strengthened by the “pandemic test”, thus becoming an even more challenging “partner, competitor and rival” for Western countries.