Xi’s tour of the region began yesterday. One stop included the virtual inauguration of Chancay Port, a key trade hub between China and the region. His aim is to boost cooperation and multilateralism. Donald Trump's return to the White House is a challenge for the future.

 

Beijing (AsiaNews) – Chinese President Xi Jinping's trip to South America began yesterday with his departure for the 31st Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Lima (Peru), which will be followed by the 19th G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). His goal is to boost cooperation and multilateralism on the doorstep of the United States, in what Washington has long considered its backyard.

The ambition, by no means hidden, is to strengthen ties between China and Latin American countries, creating a community with a shared future, greater cooperation, and better governance in a "multipolar" world with a "beneficial and inclusive" globalised economy.

These are lofty goals at a time in which divisions, conflicts, chaos, and unprecedented and closely linked challenges seem to prevail, with economic slowdowns, increasing protectionism, and regional conflicts, crises that require a global and effective response.

With this in mind, the Chinese president has always looked to APEC, working for the establishment of a mechanism that provides for regular meetings between leaders, to promote openness and development, to support what has been dubbed the “Asia-Pacific miracle”.

This region has vast potential thanks to its enormous natural resources, tourism, dynamic domestic markets, purchasing power, and growing digital economy.

In October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast that the world economy will grow at 3.2 per cent in 2024, while Asia is in a period of great development with growth expected to reach 5.3 per cent.

For China, all this requires inclusiveness and cooperation, albeit from a position of strength in order to resist those pushing for confrontation, walls, tariffs, and protectionism.

From this perspective, Donald Trump's return to the White House for a second four-year term four years after his first, in a world even more divided by conflicts, certainly does not bode well for greater global openness.

Xi in South America: APEC e G20

Peru is one of the first Latin American countries to have established diplomatic relations and a comprehensive strategic partnership with China. It is also the first Latin American state to have signed a package of free trade agreements with Beijing, which has become Lima's main trading partner and largest export market for 10 consecutive years.

Brazil, the second destination of Xi's trip, is one of China's long-standing friends. Over the years, the two countries have made substantial progress in their relationship. China has been Brazil's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, while Brazil is China's top trading partner and the largest investment destination in Latin America.

Ten years ago, Xi first proposed in Brasilia the vision of building a China-Latin America community with a shared future, charting the course for the development of China-Latin America relations in a new era.

Analysts note that over the years, China has focused on promoting relations based on equality, mutual benefit, and common development with the Global South, playing a constructive role in addressing global issues and reforming the global governance system.

The G20 in Brazil (18-19 November) falls into this framework with the theme: "Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet", a reminder of the times, but also of the aspirations of many of the countries of the world.

At the upcoming summit, which will mark the Chinese leader's 11th participation in the international forum, he will be called upon to address key issues, including building an open world economy and improving global governance.

According to sources in Beijing, the president also wants to lay out China’s positions on global issues and provide possible solutions in the face of challenges and critical issues, a perspective centred on developing a framework of cooperation despite obvious difficulties starting with the economy.

Chancay Port

Chinese interests in South America are clearly on display in one of the major events on Xi’s intense schedule, namely the virtual inauguration, via video link, of a mega port in Chancay, about 80 kilometres north of Lima, together with his Peruvian counterpart Dina Boluarte and at least 16 APEC heads of state.

This port will make the Chancay-Shanghai route a true path, promoting “common development and prosperity,” Xi writes in a statement published on the website of China’s Foreign Ministry. “It will also help build an Inca Trail of the New Era with Chancay Port as its starting point, thus boosting the overall development and integration of the region.”

Through joint efforts of both countries, Chancay Port will be a success, a key maritime centre for trade between South America and Asia, in particular China (port of Shanghai), because it will represent a regional hub capable of distributing goods in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia. Today it takes between 35 and 40 days to get from South America to East Asia (China, South Korea, Japan), but with Chancay, ships can make the journey in 23 days, with great savings in terms of time and costs.

The facility will also benefit thousands of families in Peru’s central coastal region, generating US$ 4.5 billion in revenue per year, or 1.8 per cent of Peru’s GDP, with direct jobs in trade, fishing, food, beverage, metalworking, and more.

The multi-purpose facility will allow Peru to receive large ships with bigger cargo capacity, up to 24,000 containers, and will carry about 30 to 40 per cent of its trade towards China and Southeast Asia in the first years of operation.

The only access to the port is through a 1,840-metre-long bridge, the longest in Peru, built to limit the impact on the city of Chancay, and through which one can reach the piers, which cover more than 1.5 kilometres.

From an economic and trade perspective, there is no shortage of criticism, starting with the psychological risks of addictive shopping and compulsive buying in a world where marketing is increasingly intrusive.

Speaking to AFP, Uruguayan psychologist Veronica Massonier warns that, “At night, instead of watching a series, many people spend time swiping on their (mobile) screens, browsing” the main Chinese online retail services like Shein, Temu, and AliExpress.

According to Statista, Latin Americans spent about US$ 122 billion online in 2022, which is expected to rise to US$ 200 billion by 2026.

In addition to psychological dependency, there are also environmental consequences, according to United Nations experts concerned that the fashion industry alone, linked to online shopping, generates about 10 per cent of the carbon emissions that overheat the planet, more than all international flights and maritime shipments combined.

A 2023 report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a US government agency, said: “Shein and other fast fashion platforms are exacerbating this trend.”

Washington vs. Beijing

This is a scenario that the new Trump administration will have to increasingly deal with.

A report published just a few weeks ago by Senator Marco Rubio, slated to become the next US secretary of state, stressed that, “Communist China is the most powerful adversary the United States has faced in living memory.” Past threats such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union "had smaller economies than we did”.

Overall , “the Chinese Communist Party is playing a better hand” since it “controls the largest industrial base in the world, fuels its factories with market-distorting subsidies and rampant theft, and, as this report highlights, now leads in many of the industries that will determine geopolitical supremacy in the 21st century, from shipbuilding to electric vehicles.”

As a result, “Beijing will have greater sway over which set of values defines the 21st century: liberty and representative government, or authoritarianism and oppression.”

RED LANTERNS IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO CHINA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY THURSDAY? TO SUBSCRIBE, CLICK HERE.

• peru
• china
• latin america
• united states
• apec
• g20
• trade
• xi jinping
• marco rubio