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The Celac, looking towards Beijing

2023-01-25T09:44:45.575Z


The Celac, looking towards Beijing Xi Jinping is a fan of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and it's not hard to see why. Without the prying eyes of the US, the forum gives you the opportunity to have a captive audience of presidents eager for Chinese loans and with a huge appetite for access to the Chinese market. The CELAC summit this Tuesday took place in Buenos Aires with a host, President Alberto Fe


Xi Jinping is a fan of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and it's not hard to see why.

Without the prying eyes of the US, the forum gives you the opportunity to have a captive audience of presidents eager for Chinese loans and with a huge appetite for access to the Chinese market.

The CELAC summit this Tuesday took place in Buenos Aires with a host, President Alberto Fernández, who has described his Chinese counterpart as an "example for the countries of the world."

The red carpet being rolled out for Xi in Latin America reflects the inestimable value of Chinese economic involvement, and the region's immense economic need.

China is the first trading partner of Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay.

It has lent billions of dollars to infrastructure projects in the region, including $17 billion for Argentina.

But this kindness is also a product of fear.

China has used its economic might as a weapon, limiting Lithuania's market access because of its relationship with Taiwan, for example.

It did the same with Australia after that country criticized its handling of the pandemic.

In South America, Beijing has deprived Paraguay of Chinese Covid-19 vaccines because of its ties to Taiwan.

Ecuador has high expectations for its new trade agreement with China.

Uruguay is negotiating a similar deal, and Argentina recently joined the New Silk Road initiative.

All of them are vulnerable to any punishment from Beijing.

CELAC could help balance this extremely unequal dynamic by providing a forum to help coordinate a regional approach to this strategic relationship.

A good start would be illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

The Chinese fleet is pillaging Latin America's coastal waters, threatening maritime biodiversity and diluting the regional fishing industry.

This includes 200 miles of fishing grounds on the Argentine Atlantic coast, just past the national border, where the Chinese navy conducts temporary trawling.

In a multi-year study, Oceana documented more than 400 Chinese fishing vessels throughout Argentine waters.

It also found evidence that these vessels frequently disable their radars when fishing illegally.

Even so, regional governments do not always suffer in silence.

In 2016, the Argentine Coast Guard sank a Chinese boat fishing in its territorial waters.

In 2017, Ecuador captured a Chinese ship carrying 300 tons of marine wildlife inside the Galapagos Marine Reserve.

The presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama established the historic Eastern Tropical Pacific Maritime Corridor, a transnational biosphere reserve that protects marine species from indiscriminate fishing.

Chile, Ecuador and Peru, among others, are signatories to the Agreement on Port State Measures to stop illegal fishing, including international deep-sea fishing fleets, which follow migratory routes, squandering the marine reserves of countries with little regulation and control.

Even so, Latin American governments avoid confrontation with China, even when these actions include abuses of the land or maritime environment.

Countries know that they will be punished by Beijing if they speak up.

But in international relations, numbers give security.

Xi would surely feel the pressure, but collective action would limit his options.

To be sure, Chinese investments in Latin America are not charity, but an irreversible link to China's food, mineral and energy demand.

CELAC is not necessarily the ideal forum to confront Xi.

Since its founding in 2011, it has helped lessen US influence in the region and deepen Chinese ties through a China-CELAC high-level forum.

That being said, CELAC can be a venue to confront China.

The organization is gaining importance thanks to the return of Brazil after the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Beyond that, the absence of the US means that regional leaders can criticize China and not be accused of taking sides in the so-called "great competition".

Argentina's traveling CELAC presidency is the right time to reshape the region's approach to China.

Fernández has promised to use the organization's leadership to build a "political agreement" and give "priority to cooperation in environmental matters."

Given the increasing economic dependence on Chinese credits, investments and trade – and the absence of alternatives on the part of the US, CELAC is not necessarily willing to react to what is happening in Hong Kong, the abuses in Tibet and Xianjing and bullying Taiwan.

It is difficult to imagine a dialogue about the negative aspects of the relationship with China, such as exports of surveillance equipment against civil liberties, credit with a lack of transparency that minimizes the fight against corruption, and the limitation of raw materials. for the industrial development of the region.

But CELAC and the China-CELAC forum could address the issue of illegal fishing.

Argentina could build a coalition that protects the region's maritime environment and fishing industry, and begin to balance Latin America's relationship with Beijing.

Benjamin N. Gedan is Director of the Latin American Program at the Wilson Center and former director for South America of the White House National Security Council in the Barack Obama administration.


Source: clarin

All news articles on 2023-01-25

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