By TIAGO NOGARA*

Southcom Commander-in-Chief Laura Richardson has been stepping up the frequency and aggressiveness of her criticism of cooperation projects involving China and Latin America.

1.

In recent months, the commander-in-chief of the Southcom, Laura Richardson, has been increasing the frequency and aggressiveness of her criticism of cooperation projects involving China and Latin America. In Aspen Security ForumIn July, Laura Richardson mentioned the growing rapprochement between Latin American governments and China, stating that “they don’t see what the United States is bringing to their countries,” and that “all they see are Chinese cranes, development, and Belt and Road Initiative projects.” She suggested that launching a “Marshall Plan” for the region could be a response to counter the influence of initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative, also known as the “New Silk Road.”

Commenting on infrastructure projects with Chinese participation, Laura Richardson stated that these developments were supposedly planned for “dual use,” that is, “not only for civilian use but also for military activities.” Furthermore, during the opening ceremony of the South American Defense Conference (SOUTHDEC) in Santiago, Chile, in August, declared that there was a contradiction between what he called “Team Democracy” and the interests of “authoritarian and communist governments that are trying to take as much as they can here in the Western Hemisphere – operating without respect for national or international laws.”

More recently, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that Brazil should be careful when considering joining the New Silk Road. Maintaining the same critical tone as Laura Richardson’s comments, she said that “Sovereignty is paramount, and this is a decision for the Brazilian government. But I would encourage my friends in Brazil to look at the proposal through the lens of objectivity, through the lens of risk management.”

These statements continue the United States’ progressive revival of narratives from the Cold War era, under the moniker of the “New Cold War,” which supposedly pits democratic and authoritarian governments across the world against each other. This discursive strategy is being adopted with great emphasis especially in Latin America, reviving principles of the old Monroe Doctrine and in line with broader American efforts to contain China. And not coincidentally, they are increasing in volume and intensity precisely in light of the growing deepening of ties of cooperation and friendship between China and Latin America.

2.

From a global perspective, this radicalization of the American stance towards China has become increasingly visible over the past few years. Since the launch of the Pivot to Asia strategy by the Barack Obama administration in 2012, successive American leaders have taken more drastic measures, such as the “trade war” carried out during the Donald Trump administration, and the recent configurations of the Quad and AUKUS with Joe Biden, intensifying the diplomatic and military siege on China.

In Latin America, it was shaped by the constant statements of high-ranking officials of the American bureaucracy questioning the intentions of cooperation projects involving China, and by the promotion of fallacious narratives such as those of supposed Chinese “imperialism” or “neocolonialism” in the region, or the repetitive farce of the “debt trap”.

This arsenal of criticism ranged from attacks on the presence of Chinese companies near the Panama Canal to heavy-handed US diplomatic action to try to block Huawei’s entry and the installation of 5G technology in Latin American telecommunications systems. All of these moves were surrounded by accusations of alleged geopolitical interests behind Chinese initiatives, in line with the paradigm of what academics servile to Washington have called the “New Cold War.”

However, the tragedy is being repeated as a farce, and American appeals seem to be having less and less effect on the decisions of Latin American governments and peoples, who have been constantly opting to deepen cooperative ties with China. The Chinese already hold the position of the largest trading partner in South America and the second largest in Latin America. More than 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries have already joined the New Silk Road, and Colombia has recently shown strong intentions to follow suit. In addition, Chinese productive investments in the region have been increasing, especially those linked to renewable energy and infrastructure projects, contributing substantially to the potentialization of local economies.

What is striking is that, contrary to the empty rhetoric of the “New Cold War”, such cooperation has been maintained regardless of the ideological orientations of Latin American governments. Even though think tanks and the US media insist on instigating the anti-communist narrative and urging caution regarding ties with China, even Latin American governments with a conservative and right-wing bias have made a point of deepening their countries' bilateral relations with the Chinese. Such choices are clearly not made due to ideological affinities, but neither do they occur solely due to a pragmatism restricted to the economic dimension. They involve another dimension constantly present in the modus operandi of Chinese diplomacy, which has been highly appreciated in Latin America, a region so often affected by the aggressive intervention of major powers: mutual respect and non-intervention in the domestic affairs of third parties.

In this sense, it is at least ironic that the accusations of alleged predatory and hidden interests of Chinese initiatives in Latin America come precisely from Washington, which for so many decades has insisted on treating the region as its garden, not tolerating countries making sovereign decisions that go against US interests.

Considering the history of hemispheric politics, it is even more surprising that Laura Richardson speaks of the need for a “Marshall Plan” to contain Chinese efforts in the region. After all, the implementation of the Marshall Plan in Europe during the Cold War was directly linked to intervention in the domestic affairs of the recipient countries: financial aid was conditional on the exclusion of communist parties from government coalitions.

3.

Interestingly, during the Cold War, Latin American leaders often called for greater cooperation and economic aid from the United States for the region. Contrary to such requests, the American emphasis in Latin America was much more on political and ideological dimensions, and especially on military cooperation, as illustrated by the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR).

While the first constantly served as a platform to forge the unity of “democratic” governments against the “communist threat” – as illustrated by Cuba’s exclusion from the organization in 1962 – the second guaranteed a military pact against interference by external powers in the American continent.

President of Brazil between 1956 and 1961, Juscelino Kubitschek was neither a communist nor a leftist. However, he was concerned about the lack of economic aid from the United States, which only talked about ideology and reproduced McCarthyist speeches. He proposed what he called the Pan-American Operation (OPA), which required American investment to materialize what would practically be a Marshall Plan for the Americas.

Aligning itself with the premises of Yankee capitalism, it stated that such a demand converged with the efforts to fight “against the materialist and antidemocratic threat of the Soviet bloc”, claiming a desire to “stand alongside the West, but without wishing to constitute its proletariat”. In short, it basically indicated that, if the United States really wanted to avoid new social revolutions in Latin America, it should pay attention to economic aid as the main means to combat the social ills of underdevelopment and improve the quality of life of the people of the region.

But despite his demonstrated ideological subservience, Juscelino Kubitschek failed to obtain the cooperation he so desired. Faced with constant refusals to provide economic aid and credit, the president even ended up breaking off Brazil's relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). What Juscelino Kubitschek and Brazil actually received, as did the rest of the Latin American countries, was covert American sponsorship of ideological war and state terrorism.

The 1964 military coup, with clear support from the United States, would result in the impeachment of Juscelino Kubitschek, then a senator. The meager American economic aid was directed in this context to the “hot borders” of the Cold War, such as Western Europe and the Far East, and not to Latin America, where control would be exercised by emulating the old policy of Big stick. Not even the far-right and radically anti-communist Argentine military dictatorship was spared from Washington's utilitarian pragmatism: when confronted with England in the Falklands War, it was abandoned due to the American priority for ties with the British, ignoring the TIAR and demonstrating that the defense pact was only convenient when it served the interests of the United States.

Such high-level economic cooperation never came to fruition either. In the 1960s and 1970s, what really prevailed was the sponsorship of Latin American national security dictatorships, which, with their torture and assassinations of opponents, in no way resembled the “democratic” ideals that supposedly guided Washington’s actions. In the 1980s and 1990s, economic assistance from multilateral financial institutions was conditioned on the adoption of neoliberal measures of the Washington Consensus, with the disproportionate economic opening leading to the progressive dismantling of industrial parks and social safety nets in the countries of the region, and the consequent spread of unemployment and poverty.

In the first decade of the 2000s, the main reasons for the recovery of Latin American economic growth lay precisely in the growing economic synergy with China, which, after joining the World Trade Organization, quickly became an indispensable trading partner for the countries of the region. Gradually, this cooperation transcended the purely commercial dynamic, touching on the construction of deeper understandings based on instruments such as the CELAC-China Forum.

The recent massive adhesion of Latin American and Caribbean countries to the New Silk Road clearly demonstrates this growing connection, and the growing investments in the areas of infrastructure and renewable energy further increase expectations about the links.

Consequently, the statements made by Laura Richardson, Katherine Tai and other high-ranking US officials will not resonate with Latin Americans and Caribbeans. After all, such statements are not based on the materiality of relations between China and Latin America, nor do they reflect the true stance adopted by the United States in hemispheric politics in recent decades.

Ties between China and Latin America are advancing in common accord, without interference in each other's domestic affairs, and with cooperation agreements that transcend the commercial sphere, also encompassing investments, science and technology, and cultural and educational exchanges.

China and Latin America have a common past of resistance to the evils of colonialism and the predatory policies of the great powers, and a present of strengthening instruments of multilateral cooperation aligned with the perspective of a multipolar international order.

It will not be the excessive words of the heirs of the filibusters of yesteryear that will reap such synergy, because the narratives of the New Cold War and the resumption of the Monroe Doctrine undoubtedly do not fit into the sovereign aspirations of the peoples of Latin America.

*Tiago Nogara is a visiting scholar at Sun Yat-sen University, China.

the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE