Less than a week after the release of the U.S. strategy in December, Beijing issued a little-noticed policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean. The 6,700-word policy paper, China’s first on the region in almost a decade, notes that “China has always stood in solidarity through thick and thin with the Global South, including Latin America and the Caribbean”.
China hasn’t said why it has published the Latin American strategy paper now. It significantly expands on the previous official policy unveiled in 2016 to include security and governance initiatives since then. Notably, the strategy paper makes clear that Beijing’s top policy priority for Latin America and the Caribbean is severing the region’s remaining links to Taiwan. The region includes seven of the 12 governments worldwide that maintain diplomatic relations with the democratically run island, including Guatemala, Paraguay and Haiti.
According to an analysis of China’s Latin American stance by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “great power competition in the region has only just begun”.
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Less than a week after the release of the U.S. strategy in December, Beijing issued a little-noticed policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean. The 6,700-word policy paper, China’s first on the region in almost a decade, notes that “China has always stood in solidarity through thick and thin with the Global South, including Latin America and the Caribbean”.
China hasn’t said why it has published the Latin American strategy paper now. It significantly expands on the previous official policy unveiled in 2016 to include security and governance initiatives since then. Notably, the strategy paper makes clear that Beijing’s top policy priority for Latin America and the Caribbean is severing the region’s remaining links to Taiwan. The region includes seven of the 12 governments worldwide that maintain diplomatic relations with the democratically run island, including Guatemala, Paraguay and Haiti.
According to an analysis of China’s Latin American stance by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “great power competition in the region has only just begun”.