By Connectas via Global Voices – China has once again come to the rescue of Latin American countries in their hour of need. In late 2020, the death toll was rising in Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru, as well as in other countries in the region. Europe and the United States had secured millions of vaccines, but these doses were not reaching Latin America. Here, China detected both a political and economic opportunity. Today, almost all Latin American countries are vaccinating their populations with Chinese vaccines, no questions asked.
A family member, friend, or even your child’s teacher has probably already had their dose of Sinopharm or CoronaVac (Sinovac). However, the “vaccine diplomacy,” as experts have named this policy, is just the latest chapter in China’s growing interest in the region. This can be seen in the recent emergence of the Latin American chapter of China’s huge infrastructure and investment project known as the New Silk Road, which has been advancing over the last four years in the region, to the indifference of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
At first, Beijing extended its influence over Latin American raw materials. China subsequently began financing large infrastructure projects (mainly focused on energy) and, finally, it granted loans to countries that would otherwise not have been able to obtain financing in the international market.
Refrigerated containers with 1,000,000 Sinovac vaccines in Hong Kong. They are already on the way here. Tomorrow they will arrive at the CDMX Airport [in Mexico] in the early hours of the morning. China’s support can be clearly seen here!
China was at first interested in the food products that it still purchases from Brazil and Argentina but later diversified its portfolio to other countries in the region such as Ecuador, where China financed large energy projects. Venezuela’s anti-US stance has brought the country closer to China, which became its largest lender. As the old saying goes, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Before the pandemic, China had already begun to build strong relationships with Mexico, Chile, and Peru—countries with large domestic markets—to invest in their service sectors.
“When you sit with a powerful nation such as China, it brings a huge investment portfolio to the table. In this context, vaccines are just another topic on the agenda,” says Federico Merke, Professor of International Relations at the University of San Andrés in Argentina. “China has a very strong presence in Latin America, which has been steadily growing over the last 10 years. Doing business with China brings both opportunity and risk. The opportunities include access to vaccines, but the risks involve associating yourself with a country that does not respect human rights, that does not care about protecting the environment and that has no qualms about accepting or paying bribes,” he added.
Federico Urdinez, an expert on China at the Catholic University of Chile, conducted a study in seven Latin American countries, asking participants about their perceptions of China. Those interviewed tended to give the same answer: coronavirus. Memories of the Wuhan market were clearly still fresh in the minds of many Latin Americans, who blamed China for the hardships that they were still suffering.
Urdinez concluded that initially, China’s “mask diplomacy,” which involved donations of face masks that arrived in Latin America during the worst months of the pandemic, did not work. However, when the Catholic University of Chile repeated the study several months later, opinions changed. “The reputational damage that they had not been able to reverse with masks, they did with vaccines. China’s public image has now improved among Latin Americans,” Urdinez explained.
