Venezuela, China May Open Fund To Anti-US Alliance – Chavez

[Ryan Ruck]

Venezuela, China May Open Fund To Anti-US Alliance – Chavez

China and Venezuela may open a key bilateral investment fund to left-leaning governments across Latin America in a bid at eroding U.S. allegiance in the region, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.

As he wrapped up a three-day visit to China, Chavez said he had spoken with Chinese President Hu Jintao about including countries like Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay in the fund, which is currently used for development projects in Venezuela.

Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay are led by leftist allies of Chavez who have openly criticized U.S. policy in and outside of Latin America.

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passive domination - china in latin america

Thursday, 16 October 2008



Washington does not see Chinese economic penetration of Latin America as inherently antithetical to American interests, through there is now genuine concern over how the accelerating interactions might lead to military or strategic cooperation at a later stage.

The deployment of Chinese peacekeepers in Haiti—the first in the Western Hemisphere—has particularly inflamed these anxieties. Beijing has already attempted to sell arms to Venezuela. The Chinese government also reportedly conducts intelligence activities in Latin America through visitors, students, and front companies, and there are concerns about the PRC using Cuba as a listening post to monitor developments in the United States.

Given the rapid expansion of trade, commercial, and investment ties between the countries of the region and China, it is important to understand Beijing’s motivations. The Chinese regime is engaged in a prolonged commitment to Latin America. The principal and overriding goal is access to the rich reserves of foodstuffs, minerals, and energy resources. Differing to how the Europeans once traded, limiting commerce with other nations during the 18th and 19th century, the US General predicate of free-trade-open-to-all could now come to haunt them as the Chinese begin to beat them in their own game of import and export.

Latin America is clearly at a rush to build infrastructure to suit not only China but the whole of Asia – for the past ten years Asia’s growth has been growing at a steady 10% compared to Europe’s 3%. Similarly Latin Americans are told persuasively that Red China and other success stories such as Vietnam are the land of the triumphant peasant revolution.

Rivalry with Taiwan plays into China’s courting of Latin American countries, with its continuing political objective is to isolate the island. China actively will court those 12 countries in this Hemisphere that recognize Taiwan diplomatically. Against this backdrop, conservative voices in Washington argue that the United States has a vital interest in aiding Taiwan in maintaining its alliances in Central America and the Caribbean, if only to check the expansion of Beijing’s geopolitical reach.

Funny and interesting cases of China courting Latin American countries -

GRENADA - And though in 2003 Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said that maintaining ties with Taiwan is “practical,” by 2005 he had changed his tune, signing a joint communiqué declaring support for the “One China” policy. In exchange for ending this 15-year relationship with Taiwan, Grenada received support from China for rebuilding and expanding its national stadium for the 2007 Cricket World Cup; the construction of 2,000 housing units; new hospital facilities; agricultural support; a $6 million grant to complete projects previously financed by Taiwan; and an additional $1 million scholarship fund. In February 2007, Grenada committed one of its most grievous errors in recent memory when officials accidentally played the Taiwanese national anthem at the inauguration of a new national stadium built by China at a cost of $40 million. Prime Minister Keith Mitchell watched in horror as the planned moment of triumph descended into an unmitigated diplomatic fiasco, and he quickly ordered an investigation into the matter, saying that “it has saddened and ached my heart.” Other Caribbean countries were both amused and troubled by the incident, which they viewed as a cautionary tale that reflected the region’s delicate balancing act.

HAITI - The PRC contributed 125 riot police to MINUSTAH, the Brazilian-led UN stabilization the fletcher forum of world affairs force deployed in Haiti, and then subsequently leveraged its permanent member status on the Security Council to prevent Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang from attending the inauguration of Rene Préval in May 2006. Since MINUSTAH is currently the principal force preventing a complete disintegration of the security situation in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian government had no choice but to bend to Beijing’s will. Haiti, the poorest and most vulnerable nation in the Western Hemisphere, is thus caught in a war of attrition between China and Taiwan that threatens to undermine international efforts to bring the country back from the brink of state failure.

PARAGUAY - As the sole Taiwanese ally in South America, Paraguay is another possible candidate for withdrawal of support. Paraguay’s membership in Mercosur prevents it from signing a free-trade agreement with Taiwan without approval from all other Mercosur members, which presents a serious obstacle to the deepening of bilateral trade. Even without formal diplomatic ties, China already buys a good proportion of Paraguay’s soy crop while supplying about one-fourth of its imports, so normalized relations would undoubtedly bring significant trade benefits. Paraguayan recognition of Taiwan is in many respects a “holdover from the rabidly anti-communist Stroessner regime.” Given that Stroessner’s dictatorship has been out of office since 1989, officials in Asunción may just decide at some point that the time has come to eliminate this relic of a policy.

PANAMA - Speculation surrounding potential “swing states” also tends to center on Panama, one of the most strategically significant countries in Central America, where President Martín Torrijos invited Beijing to aid in the expansion of the Panama Canal. Panama’s voters approved a referendum on this massive infrastructure project last October, which will surely create new economic openings for Chinese construction companies. Relations between Taipei and Panama had cooled visibly when Torrijos assumed office; Torrijos turned down Chen’s request to visit Panama during a trip to Latin America in 2005. Much has also been made of the fact that Hutchinson-Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based Chinese shipping company with historically close affiliations with the China’s People’s Liberation Army, already holds a 50-year lease on management of key port facilities at both ends of the canal. Panama is a significant leader in the region, so if the Torrijos government arrives at the conclusion that the benefits of a relationship with Beijing are just too overwhelming to ignore, the rest of the isthmus may well follow suit.

The links suggesting Hutchinson-Whampoa as a front company for Red China in Latin America are tenuous. The company deals in import and exports for many countries the world over. In response to fears the company replied, "We have no pilots. We have no tugs. We have no boats. We have no ships. We have no containers. All we have is cranes." Following Hutchinson’s Bahamas port takeover – it was noted that Hutchison employs about 500 Bahamians. Only five managers are not Bahamians, mostly British nationals. None are Chinese.

http://handsdownwhowantstodie.blogsp...-in-latin.html

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China expands trade with Cuba

Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed to deals with Cuba that include purchases of Cuban nickel and sugar and pledges of food and hurricane relief supplies.



BY WILL WEISSERT

Associated Press

HAVANA -- China's president was signing dozens of trade and investment deals with communist ally Cuba on Tuesday, part of a Latin America trip on which Chinese businessmen have been snapping up all manner of raw materials.

Taking the long view at a time of financial crisis, China is investing heavily in commodity-producing countries, and Cuba is no exception. The deals agreed to by President Hu Jintao included purchases of Cuban nickel and sugar, along with pledges to send food and building materials to help the Caribbean nation recover from three major hurricanes.

Other deals promise stronger ties in the future, such as a Chinese commitment to help renovate Cuba's aging ports, which are vital since Cuba receives virtually all its imports by sea.

Hu also thanked Cuba for sending doctors to China after last year's devastating earthquake, and for educational programs on the island attended by about 2,000 Chinese citizens, including medical and tourism students.

Accompanying Hu on a visit to a school for Chinese students on Tuesday, Cuban President Raúl Castro sang snippets of a song about China and Mao he said he learned as a young man. At first, the hundreds of students gathered in an auditorium seemed confused, but they soon sang along, clapping in time.

''Even though the physical distance that separates China and Cuba is great, friendship between both people goes back a long way,'' Hu said.

Cuba depended heavily on Soviet largesse and turned a cold shoulder to China during the Cold War's Sino-Soviet split. But ties warmed after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Cuba now has no problem dealing with both Beijing and Moscow.

With bilateral trade topping $2.6 billion a year, China is Cuba's No. 2 trading partner after Venezuela, where socialist President Hugo Chavez provides nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day to the island at favorable prices.

The ties have brought a tangible benefit to residents of the Cuban capital, where more than 3,000 shiny new Yutong buses replaced the infamous, smoke-belching 18-wheeled ''camellos'' of the Soviet era.

But Hu's visit poses something of an ideological challenge, since some Cubans speculated that Raúl Castro might follow a Chinese model of reform after becoming president in February. China transformed its economy three decades ago by embracing market reforms even as its Communist Party maintained strict political control.

Cuba's communist government, however, still controls well over 90 percent of the economy and shows no sign of easing its grip on political or economic matters, even as Raúl Castro has expanded foreign trade 39 percent since becoming president and signed a major offshore oil exploration deal with Brazil.

On the eve of Hu's visit, the Communist Party newspaper Granma praised China's reforms as having ''sparked a gigantic investment process that brought quick results.'' But it also criticized ``the evils of such an accelerated spiral: unequal distribution of the country's income, a marked difference between city and country, and the erosion of the environment.''

Hu brought a large delegation of Chinese businessmen who have busily pursued deals despite the global financial crisis, continuing a trend that has seen China's trade with Latin America jump from $10 billion in 2000 to $103 billion last year.

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/...ry/777883.html