The United States is looking at how China and Latin America are deepening ties
Less than a week after the start of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, senior director of affairs in the Western Hemisphere at the US National Security Council, in an interview with the Voice of America (an asset in the State Department) listed that “sanctions against Russia are so robust that they will have an impact on the governments that have economic ties to Russia, and that is by design. So Venezuela will start to feel the pressure; Nicaragua will start to feel the pressure, just as Cuba will .
A recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine, which through the Council on Foreign Relations unofficially serves as a kind of discussion forum for the US State Department, entitled “The Eurasian Nightmare,” defended the thesis that Washington has no choice but to fight Russia and China at the same time.
Gonzalez, however, suggests that the Joe Biden administration’s strategy not only considers attacking the main front in the east (Moscow and Beijing), but also opens a front in the south – secondary but important – against three Latin American countries that have challenged Washington most in recent years. years (Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba).
However, the southern front may be wider than what Colombia born Juan Gonzalez makes that clear.
On March 24, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, testified for the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. She said that although Russia is the “more immediate threat” to Latin America and the Caribbean, China would pose a diplomatic, technological, informative and military challenge to the United States.
Richardson had given similar testimony in the House of Representatives about two weeks earlier, where she also stated that without “American leadership”, Chinese influence in the region could “soon resemble the self-serving predator influence it now has in Africa.”
She refers to the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative across the African continent since 2013, responsible for unprecedented tens of thousands of dollars in Chinese investment in basic infrastructure (energy, telecommunications, ports, railways, motorways, etc.) in return for the natural resources that China needs to feed its industry, which is responsible for 28.7% of all production produced in the world and consumed globally.
General Richardson’s statements are based on two principles. First, that the United States regards Latin America and the Caribbean as its “backyard,” expressed in the Monroe Doctrine since 1823 and carried out in countless military invasions, coups, and recent hybrid wars against peoples and governments that are not in line with Washington.
President Biden recently said that “Latin America is not our backyard,” but rather that it is “America’s front yard.” Hispanics do not want to be anyone’s farm, neither in front nor behind.
The second principle behind Richardson’s remarks is that the United States believes that the foreign policy of the region’s governments should be defined by Washington.
China and Latin America
In 2000, the US Congress established US-China Economic and Security Audit Commission, which offers Congress its assessment of China on U.S. national security. Last November, the Commission’s report had an important chapter on the relationship between China and the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report was concerned about China’s support for what it called “populist” governments from Argentina to Venezuela. It noted the increase in the region’s trade with China: from $ 18.9 billion (2002) to $ 295.6 billion (2020), in addition to its growing importance as a source of loans, financing ($ 137 billion from 2005 to 2020) and direct investments ($ 58 billion between 2016 and 2020).
Thanks to this investment, China was able to help the region reduce the impact of the financial crisis in 2008; the investment created jobs (1.8 million between 1995 and 2016) and reduced poverty (falling from 12% in 2002 to 4% in 2018). Chinese vaccines stormed in during the pandemic, and Latin American exports of raw materials to China eased the burden of the Covid recession.
US-China Commission concerned on the increased links between China and the region in the field of telecommunications and transport networks. Huawei’s management in fifth generation (5G) telecommunications in the region as well as Sino-South American partnerships in development of satellites (21 launched in joint ventures, most of which were with Argentina) are offered as examples.
The Commission also sounded the alarm that China’s control or influence over ports in the region, especially in the Caribbean, as these could be used for military purposes in the future (although there is no indication of such military use by China or Latin America and Caribbean states).
Washington’s Cold War
Washington’s hard right-wing elements responded quickly to this report. In february, US Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendezboth Cuban-Americans, introduced the Western Hemisphere Security Strategy Act of 2022 in Congress.
This bill, drawing from the Commission’s recommendations, proposes that the US government directly challenge China’s role in the region. It characterizes the existence of China and Russia in the region as a “harmful and malignant influence.” The bill is vague and short on details.
Evan Ellis, a professor at the U.S. Army War College whose testimony was part of the commission’s report, wrote a January report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That report“Preparing for the deterioration of Latin America and the Caribbean’s strategic environment,” points to the revival “of a particular model of left-wing authoritarian populism” in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The new governments, he writes, have developed ties with China to help them over Covid recession. The United States, Ellis argues, cannot mobilize sufficient resources for investment in the region because Congress is divided and the private sector is unwilling to take on this mission.
He remains skeptical of US policy in the region, especially as Chinese state-owned companies have effectively invested in sectors such as construction, mining, energy and finance.
Ellis recommends four immediate actions, many of which are part of what is known as “hybrid warfare.”
First, he says Washington should promote a media narrative that condemns left-wing governments and their relationship with China. Second, the United States should support protest movements against these governments. Third, the United States must deepen its alliances with regional elites. Fourth, the United States must impose sanctions on these left-wing governments.
Two elections in the coming months could make things harder for the United States. In Colombia (May), the United States’ most important ally in the region, left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro was able to push the right wing out of power. In Brazil (October), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leads the polls against President Jair Bolsonaro.
Ellis suspects that the arrest and imprisonment of Lula “deepened radicalism in his left-wing populist orientation.” In May 2021, Lula told it Chinese website Guancha: “It is not possible that every time a Latin American country starts to grow, there is a coup. And in this coup, there is always someone from the United States who is always the US ambassador. It is not possible.”
Lula is not radical, but if he is re-elected president of Brazil, he will bring a realistic stance to the development of his country. He has stressed the importance of rebuilding the Latin American and Caribbean regional bloc (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC) and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), both of which have been weakened in recent years. .
Chinese investment and trade are already an important part of Brazil’s plans for the country’s future, but Lula also knows that this partnership must develop and Brazil must be more than an exporter of raw materials to China.
Will the United States be able to roll back the influence of China and Russia on the region? Even Ellis does not feel confident in such a result. Together with Rubio and Menendez, Ellis would prefer to destabilize the region rather than let it become a protagonist in a possible new world order.
This article is produced by Globetrotter, who delivered it to the Asia Times.