China's use of the military instrument in Latin America: not yet the biggest stick.

• Author: Watson, Cynthia
• Position: Security - Report

China's involvement in Latin America has grown steadily over the past decade but there are a number of constraints on the role of the People's Liberation Army that prevents it from becoming the most important mechanism in expanding China's role in Latin America. This paper discusses those constraints and the methods China's military has used to engage with Latin America in the twenty-first century.

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China is a distant partner for any country in Latin America, both figuratively and literally. Much as Brazil is the dominant state for South America, China is the dominant geographic entity in Asia, but its ties with Latin America are relatively new and perhaps unexpected. China has a proud history spanning nearly five millennia. Latin America, a diverse array of more than two dozen states with only a two-century history of independence in its current configuration as nation-states, has never held the international respect that characterizes much of China's history. The two regions have had little historic connection, but the needs of those states on both sides of the Pacific are altering that reality.

China, with its authoritarian Communist Party leadership, has developed an economy and modern consumption patterns to sustain its phenomenal economic growth that requires Beijing's deepening engagement with the rest of the world. China's relationship with Latin American states has become an especially interesting new set of engagements. Latin American-Chinese bonds, for example, offer trade and economic benefits, diplomatic respect, cross cultural links, and the chance to lessen U.S. influence over both regions.

One might assume that the Chinese armed forces, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), will be at the forefront of its reach into new relationships around the world, inferring the inevitability of the competitive, threatening stance of the United States and Soviet Union that characterized the Cold War. It transfers to Beijing the ideological basis of Soviet behavior as a given for Marxist-Leninist states--even though China's regime has proven decidedly less committed to Communism, while every bit as interested in maintaining authoritarian control through all available means. The Chinese armed forces, known collectively as the People's Liberation Army (PLA), thus is assumed to mirror the approach that the Soviet military had around the world, and especially in Latin America during the 1960s through the early 1990s in Cuba. (1)

A close political or economic arrangement between Latin America and China has been far from inevitable, making the expansion of interactions between the regions over the past decade noteworthy. President Jiang Zemin traveled the region in April 2001, even as U.S. and Chinese officials negotiated the repatriation of the U.S. EP-3 aircraft that landed in China after it collided with a PLA fighter off the Chinese coast. In November 2004, President Hu Jintao received immense press coverage as he toured the major capitals of South America in conjunction with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Santiago, Chile. Chinese leaders have often travelled to the region since then and have welcomed several of their Latin American counterparts to Beijing. (2) Similarly, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez cultivated strong ties with his Chinese counterpart partially in an attempt to shift his petroleum sales from the United States to China. Numerous trade missions traverse the Pacific from each side in the hope of strengthening economic benefits for both China and various countries in South America. China seeks extractive resources and Latin American countries seek to both sell their goods and be given the opportunity to access a vast Chinese market.

It is not entirely clear, however, whether access to resources is all Beijing seeks to accomplish in Latin America. It does not seem that China seeks to challenge the Monroe Doctrine--a near two-hundred year old U.S. presumption of supremacy from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego--as it has moved relatively judiciously in expanding its ties. Nor does China seem to want to expand its military presence in a manner that would alarm Latin American countries or the United States, as they ponder a rising China.

Instead, Beijing presently appears to view warming ties with Latin American states as a method of gaining access to resources that it continues to need, at the same time that it seeks to improve its own economic conditions by moving slowly but steadily up the production chain to more developed goods. Beijing appears to desire long-term improvement of its relations with the region without addressing the competitive aspects that will appear on the horizon, as Latin America's interests come into conflict with China's. (3) The warming ties are gradual, substantial, and varied, but not indicative of a massive Chinese embrace of Latin America or intent to oust the United States as the primary outside power.

The PLA is not China's primary tool of statecraft in accomplishing its aims. China seeks to use a more diverse set of instruments in its relationship while the United States, by contrast, has become increasingly reliant on the military in its ties with Latin America and much of the rest of the world. (4) While the PLA has modernized its weapon systems and improved the quality of its personnel, it has simultaneously downsized personnel numbers to achieve a better quality force. But the PLA remains far from a global military force at present. (5)

This article examines the reasons that underlie China's involvement in Latin America with a view towards explaining why the PLA will not serve as the primary instrument of national power in engaging in Latin America.

IS THIS ACHIEVING CHINA'S GOALS OR IMAGING WHAT THE WEST FEARS?

As Beijing continues to show a greater interest in relationships with multiple Latin American states, it has also shown a desire to emphasize economic and trade connections, cultural exchanges, and political ties. China has become a major investor in the region, particularly in mining, energy exploitation, food production, and banking sectors. It has grown accustomed to exporting its products to Latin America...