– China, Growing Superpower

China Filling U.S. Vacuum in Latin America
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com

There's a powerful new player in Latin America and its aggressive presence south of our borders spells trouble for the U.S. in this politically sensitive region.

Writing about "The Middle Kingdom in Latin America" in the September 3 Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O'Grady explained that China is "inching into the void" created by U.S. failure to pay attention to what's happening among our neighbors in the Caribbean and Latin America.

"U.S.-Latin America policy is now defined by a costly drug war of doubtful effectiveness, persistent and damaging International Monetary Fund meddling, harassment of Latin militaries at the behest of left-wing NGOs, an intelligence network that counts coca plants for a living and a naïve attitude toward bullies like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez," O'Grady wrote.

"This has left Latins scratching their heads about Dubya. Of course, these are not Bush values. But they are the priorities of his State Department and other agencies and by default have become the U.S. agenda in the region."

Enter China

Into this delicate situation steps China, with money and markets to offer to an area in need of both, making the Asian powerhouse a political and economic rival of the U.S. in its own backyard.

And it's not just Latin Americans who are feeling China's presence in their midst - the islands of the Caribbean are also targeted by Beijing's growing presence and influence , O'Grady reveals, citing the deployment to Haiti of a 130-man Chinese riot-control police unit, scheduled to arrive in mid-September to join the United Nations stabilization mission as "A relatively minor but interesting example."

Noting that it is true that while the "U.N. needs peacekeepers for this thankless job in Haiti, it is at least mildly ironic that China's police, notorious for their high-handed and sometimes brutal treatment of Chinese citizens, are now charged with protecting human life in Haiti."

As NewsMax.com reported Chinese Company Completes World's Largest Port in Bahamas Hutchison Whampoa a Hong Kong-based conglomerate with close ties to China's People's Liberation Army that has taken operational control of the Panama Canal was then in the process of completing construction of the largest container port in the world in Freeport, Bahamas – just 60 miles from Florida.

Turning to Cuba, she notes China's military relationship with Castro's Communist regime. She quotes a chilling staff report from the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami as reporting that: "In February 1999, [China's defense minister] Chi [Haotian] visited Havana to finalize an agreement with Cuban counterpart Raul Castro to operate joint Sino-Cuban signals intelligence and electronic warfare facilities on the island, equipped (at China's expense) with the latest telecommunications hardware and fully integrated into Beijing's global satellite network. By March 1999, [Chinese Army] officers and technicians began monitoring U.S. telephone conversations and Internet data from a new cyber-warfare complex in the vicinity of Bejucal, some 20 miles south of Havana."

Second Installation

The report adds: "A second installation, capable of eavesdropping on classified U.S. military communications by intercepting satellite signals was also constructed on the eastern end of the island, near the city of Santiago de Cuba."

Rounding out the Chinese Caribbean trifecta, O'Grady notes "is Venezuela, where an anti-American demagogue, Hugo Chávez, delights in the kind of Yankee-baiting his hero, Fidel Castro, has long practiced."

O'Grady quotes Cynthia Watson, a professor of strategy at the National War College in Washington who has just spent a year studying China's influence in the region as writing that. while Latin America is still below Africa in terms of Chinese strategic interest it is getting more attention.

"China has a targeted need to find energy resources," says Watson, who emphasized that her comments are her own. "They are interested in oil contracts in Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia. That's why Jiang Zemin went to Caracas in 2001. They want to cultivate a relationship that would put them in a more favorable situation and they want to show Latin American nations that they will treat them as sovereigns, that they won't preach to them and they will act as partners."

The idea that China offers an alternative to dealing with the U.S. in both economic and political terms O'Grady suggests is likely to appeal to the likes of Hugo Chávez, Brazil's President Luis Inácio "Lula" da Silva and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner.

Growing Relationship

"The growing relationship between Brazil and China is viewed as two emerging powers that can benefit each other vis-à-vis the U.S," Watson adds noting that for China, "there is the possibility of utilizing Brazil's space program which is on an equatorial path. And Beijing would like to be the major market where Brazil goes when it wants to sell its agricultural products. Lula has not embraced the FTAA [Free Trade Area of the Americas] and may go to Beijing instead."

China's fixation with conquering Taiwan and the fact that six Central American nations have diplomatic relations with Taipei, O'Grady suggests may be why "China reportedly has made a generous offer (some say $10 billion or more) to Panama to fund an enlargement of the Panama Canal.

"The effort to shut out Taiwan also explains why China is dropping big bucks into the Caribbean, where the 14 independent English-speaking nations are always hungry for handouts. The latest Chinese victory in what policy wonks call "yuan diplomacy" came in March when Dominica dropped its recognition of Taiwan in favor of Beijing."

Summing up, O'Grady warns that China's rising influence in the region "could complicate U.S. efforts to control illegal immigration, weapons shipments, the drug trade and money laundering because China is cooperating with Latin countries that are not especially friendly toward those efforts. Some of these nations may try to use the Chinese alternative to challenge U.S. hegemony.

"Given China's view of liberty, this cannot be a positive development for the Americas. To counter it, the White House would do well to take a hard look at the crippled diplomacy the State Department has been practicing. It needs an agenda defined by American values that will foster growth, sound money and open markets. As importantly, it needs to re-examine whether the war on drugs, as currently waged, is doing more harm than good."