The op-ed article “What China Got Right in Latin America” that Foreign Policy magazine published on Monday was apparently a follow-up to the APEC gathering in Lima, Peru, last month, which provided further evidence of China’s growing clout in Latin America that has made some US pundits and policymakers feel uneasy fearing Washington is losing its “backyard” to Beijing.
Although the two authors of the article call on Washington to go beyond its geopolitical contest with Beijing in Latin America, and join hands with China to improve “the region’s woeful infrastructure” so as to not just “reduce poverty and inequality in the Western Hemisphere” but also “provide an opportunity for positive collaboration between the West and China”, that appears to be only wishful thinking.
The United States is going all out around the world, including in the US’ long-ignored Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, to try and outcompete China. There is no indication the incoming “America first” administration, an obvious target reader of the FP article, intends to end that, particularly in Latin America. Not to mention the fact that poverty and inequality in the region or anywhere else, even in the US, have never been a true concern of the US government.
That the US should work with regional multilateral development banks in Latin America to restructure their loan portfolios to prioritize large-scale, cross-border infrastructure projects and “help fill the shortfall left by China’s likely decline in overseas infrastructure investment” and “balance China’s disproportionate role in the sector”, as the article urged, is nothing but daydream-talk too.
Before the conditions that have long obstructed US investment from US companies and private investors flowing to Latin American infrastructure projects, such as low returns, uncertainties and risks, see fundamental changes, the US administration will only pay lip service to its “we-care” commitment to the region and other Global South countries.
GUANCHA.CN