In Latin America, the U.S. Is Getting Competition With China All Wrong
Back in 2006, Gen. Bantz Craddock—at the time the commanding officer of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, in charge of operations in Latin America and the Caribbean—testified to Congress about Washington’s military priorities in the region. Concerns about “radical Islamic groups,” including al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah, operating in Latin America featured prominently and early in his statement. A single paragraph about China made an appearance on page 26, and there was no mention of Russia.
Last month, when Gen. Laura Richardson, SOUTHCOM’s current commanding officer, presented a posture statement to the U.S. Congress, there wasn’t a single mention of al-Qaida, ISIS, Hezbollah or any other Islamist terrorist group. Instead, the document, which is supposed to be about Latin America, begins by discussing “Strategic Competition with the People’s Republic of China – A Decisive Decade.” The question of how U.S. policy in the region relates to China is woven throughout the document. Additionally, an entire section is dedicated to the challenge of countering Russia’s influence in the region.
Though it does an injustice to the region, which warrants engagement for its own sake, U.S. policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean is always going to be shaped by Washington’s global concern of the moment. Sometimes the only way for U.S. policymakers to call Washington’s attention to Western Hemisphere affairs is to highlight how they overlap with whatever else policymakers are panicking about elsewhere around the world. It was true throughout the Cold War. It happened during the Global War on Terrorism. And it remains true as Washington debates whether the U.S. has entered a second Cold War against China.
As a result, U.S. policy toward Latin America is now all about competition with China. Analysts, myself included, will complain about that framing and attempt to argue against it. Latin America is worth caring about regardless of how it factors into Washington’s competition with Beijing, just as it was worth caring about in the 2000s regardless of how it factored into the spread of radical Islamist terrorism. But amid the intra-D.C. competition for attention and funding, those who care about Latin America need to play to the crowd that cares about China or risk losing out to other regions of the world when it comes to Washington’s policy priorities.
Like it or not, then, U.S. policy in Latin America is now strongly shaped by the question of China’s involvement and influence there. But if that’s the case, it’s worth having a clearer understanding of public opinion in the region on that question.
When competing with Beijing, U.S. criticisms cannot be aimed at pushing China out of Latin America, but they can help shape better actions by China throughout the hemisphere.
To that end, Colombia Risk Analysis and Cifras & Conceptos published a report last week about China’s relationship and investments in Colombia that should serve as a starting point for research in other countries in the hemisphere. The report was based on interviews with dozens of business executives around the country and a poll of a representative sample of 1,200 Colombians to paint a picture of the general public sentiment toward China.
In summary, the surveys and polls found that Colombian business leaders and the general public are supportive of better relations with Beijing and more Chinese investment. The report suggests that Colombia and China have strengthened their economic relationship over the past decade and that further integration is almost inevitable. But while many respondents are aware of the challenges that go hand in hand with Chinese projects—including corruption, poor quality of work, labor rights violations, debt trap concerns and the lack of environmental protection—the country and its political system have not fully grappled with addressing them.
Though more research is needed, it seems reasonable to assume that similar results will hold true in many countries across the region. If so, the U.S. needs to consider what that means for its own Latin America policy.
It’s no mystery why much of Latin America would want a relationship with Beijing: The economic opportunities it offers the region are too large to ignore. And China has successfully integrated itself with the region’s economies in such a way that reversing that process at this point would be nearly impossible. It is the major trading partner and commodity purchaser for much of South America. And in some places, its loans rival those of multilateral development banks, making China a key actor in any debt negotiations that Latin American economies might face in the challenging years ahead.
No amount of U.S. criticism of China’s regional footprint, which typically includes a mixture of very real concerns as well as more than a bit of hypocritical hype, is going to stop or reverse these trends. But while the U.S. is not going to convince countries to turn away from Beijing, it could very well help governments debate and regulate their way to a better and more fair playing field, for China but also for all foreign powers operating in their countries. That would ultimately benefit the populations of countries across the region.
Latin America, both its business communities and populations at large, are open to hearing and potentially acting on the criticisms of how China works with the region. Regional governments can and should demand better governance of environmental, labor and human rights conditions from the Chinese companies that operate in their countries. When competing with Beijing, U.S. criticisms cannot be aimed at pushing China out of Latin America, but they can help shape better actions by China throughout the hemisphere. To put it bluntly, Latin America deserves better from China in the 21st century than it received from Europe and the U.S. in centuries past. The region is very open to that message, and some self-reflection on the part of the U.S. would probably boost its impact.
One concern about U.S. policy in Latin America adopting the “competition with China” narrative is that it will almost certainly be accompanied, and perhaps defined by, a question no one in the region wants to answer: Which side are you on? That would be a mistake. Countries in Latin America have good reasons to try to maintain strong economic relationships with both Beijing and Washington. For the U.S., the challenge in the coming years is to articulate a message that helps shape the policy debate in Latin America about the risks of expanding economic ties with China, without falling into the trap of unrealistically forcing the region’s countries to choose a side.
James Bosworth is the founder of Hxagon, a firm that does political risk analysis and bespoke research in emerging and frontier markets. He has two decades of experience analyzing politics, economics and security in Latin America and the Caribbean.