A study of two key US and one Chinese strategists regarding Latin America:
towards a three macro-regions future of cooperation
Jorge Serrano“Latin America may well be the theater in which the most importantgeopolitical trade-offs of the twenty-first century are acted out”
(Watson)“Not the one who fights the 100 battles and comes out victorious, but he
who gets victorious without fighting, such is the best strategist of all”
(Sün Tzu)

INTRODUCTION
The two epigraphic sentences of this paper are a challenge to its very title. Is it true at allthat right now when a couple of big world powers intensify their presence in Latin America(L.A) –a macro region which appears to them as an important ground for competing- canwe foresee a trend towards a three macro-regions future of cooperation? On the one hand,the first of the two sentences declares that L.A can well become the theater in which themost important political trade-offs of the XXI century will take place. This can beunderstood if we recall that one of such world powers, the US, has considered L.A fornearly two centuries as its backyard. Yet we should remind also that the other power,
China, is rapidly increasing her presence to a quite large scale. One of the main reasonsfor the presence of both powers is their aim to dispose of the enormous amount of key
natural resources existing in L.A.
However, old as well as recent history teaches us that rather frequently wheneversimilar such situations have occurred, the big powers tend to ruthlessly compete. And themore important they consider such resources, the harder the competence will be. To thepoint that such competence has led to hard clashes and heavy wars. This has been
witnessed for instance in the Middle East due to its oil resources. How can we speak of a“three macro-regions future of cooperation”?
Moreover, the second epigraphic sentence, on the other hand, claims that rather thanbeing victorious in many battles, the victory without battles is what defines the best of all
strategies. And strategy is indeed an axis of the present paper. The confrontation between
our apparently contrasting and paradoxical approaches, is what we will try to scrutinize
and clear up in the following two parts of our paper. The first part will investigate the way
such analysts view the current strategic actions of the two big powers -US and China- in
Latin America, specifically presenting both of them what they see as the long range
objectives of the US and China in their relationship with Latin America, and also the ways
in which their policies do work for such objectives.

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To achieve that we will first analyze what our first expert, Cynthia Watson –anexperienced professor in the “National War College” of Washington- says about it, andthen we proceed to the analysis of the second expert, Daniel P. Erikson, a senior officer ofthe Department of State of the US government, specialized in Western hemisphere affairs
and formerly sent to China for four years to investigate where and under which parameters
the China-L.A relations were concoct. Whereas in both cases we will pointedly introduce,
according to the particular contexts, the views and analyses of the Chinese expert, Jiang
Shixue. He has been a researcher and professor for three decades in the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, and Vice President of the Chinese Association for Latin
American Studies.

PART I: Watson / Jiang
Watson presents: (A) the US objectives in L.A, (B) the growing influence of China in the
L.A macro region, and (C) the Obama administration in regard to China and L.A.
Section A. the US objectives in Latin America
Watson starts from the so called “Monroe Doctrine”, often expressed as “America for theAmericans” wherein “America” means the American continent, whereas “Americans” refers
directly to North Americans. However, the precise meaning is contained in a President’s
James Monroe (1817-1825) message to Congress in 1823, proscribing European
intervention in the affairs of Spanish-American states and closing future colonization toEuropean countries (Random, 1986). It is implying indeed that the continent is to thebenefit of “the Americans”; -there is here an ambiguity, partly solved by some of thehighest government policy makers, as when they have placed L.A as the US backyard(President Reagan dixit).
Such general objective however has been dis-aggregated along history in specificobjectives and goals seen always from the Monroe standing. Such position has repeatedly
appeared in US policies regarding L.A; for instance, in the so called “Washington
consensus” which formally introduced the neoliberal approach into the L.A countries. And
it reached the 21st century with President George W. Bush urging it. According to Watson:“Washington showed its intention to remain the dominant partner, monitoring anddiscouraging any involvement by other states in the region… (so that the) US interests in
L.A revolve around the stability and continuity of the neoliberal order, a condition advancedby free trade and economic modernization generated by privatized economies” (Watson
2011, 105).
And as a matter of fact the objectives and goals of the US in L.A have been often
characterized as “neocolonialism”, a term used not only in relation to the US in L.A but
also to the European powers in their dealing with Africa, the Middle East or Asia. Jiang
Shixue on his part takes issue with such criticism occasionally applied to China in L.A, as
we will see it later. He also refers to some “inflamed rhetoric” that in some cases comesout publicly. In this regard he quotes Dan Burton (while he was a Congressman in 2005)
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when he said: “I believe China’s rising economic, political, and military influence in theWestern Hemisphere poses serious challenges to the US in the years ahead. And if weare not careful, Beijing’s influence could easily unravel the region’s hard-won…, we must
work in earnest to prevent this from happening” (Burton, 2005,7)
Jiang comments: “The Chinese government understands that Latin America is perceived
by Washington as the backyard of the US, and does not endeavor to challenge thatperception” (Jiang, 2011, 57).
Section B. The growing influence of China in the Latin American macro region
Watson observes that, starting form Deng Xiaoping reform, and continued by Jiang
Zemin and Hu Jintao, China radically shifted its international strategy, thanks to which it ispaying a specially strong attention to L.A, Africa and Asia, not disregarding of course
neither the US nor the European Union (EU). Yet the question comes, what specificallymakes that such prominent attention be given to L.A? According to Watson there are two
prominent fields, the economic and the political. The first one diversified in several lines.
Concretely: (1) vast mineral deposits of, for example, iron, cupper and tin; (2) fossil fuelsthat are abundant across the Atlantic side of L.A, from the Gulf of Mexico to Venezuela(the world largest deposit of orimulsion), and Brazil and Argentina –both with rich deep
water fossil fuels-, but also on the Pacific side, for instance in Ecuador, Colombia or
Mexico; (3) immense extension of cultivated land for food production, highly desired by
China, mostly now that many millions of people are moving from rural to urban areas; (5)large commodities exports of China for consumption in many regional markets of L.A
countries.
Second, the political field. Here China engages to bring forward her global vision of theplanet as a multipolar world. This is another key turn on what globalization should be like.
And China looks to get support on that by L.A. Concretely it seeks to get support from
Brazil in order to have a relevant influence in MERCOSUR and UNASUR. Whereas it
backs Brazil at the international level to obtain for him a permanent seat in the UN Security
Council.
In his turn, Prof. Jiang sees the L.A relation in this way: “The Chinese government iscommitted to promoting a harmonious world order, and regards cooperation andinterdependence with Latin America and other developing regions as a mechanism forreaching this goal. (So) China’s relations with Latin America also have political dimensions”–my emphasis (Jiang 2011, 52)..
Section C. The Obama administration in regard to China and Latin America
As well known, Obama ascended to the great US political sphere in 2008 promising big
changes. Yet the “hard reality” was much tougher. In fact enormous difficulties were
blocking the way. Such as the Iraq issue as well as those of Afghanistan, Iran and North
Korea, or else the big financial crisis of September 2008 still underway, or the several EU
countries in hard economic and social crises; plus internal difficult issues like those of the3health law, or the lower camera democratic failure to get the majority in the second half ofObama’s administration, and so forth.
The whole of such problems are encapsulated by Watson in the term “systemic
constraints” under the precise sense that they exceed the Obama administration capacity.
And it is here where Watson introduces her key proposal to open the road for cooperation.
She borrows the term “responsible stakeholder” to claim that not only the US but also
China, being an actor of the very recent triangle (China, US and L.A), should fully play itsrole in our macro region and beyond. Because according to her, the US must take in all
earnest the fact that in today’s and future multipolar open world, the US can no more
maintain its Monroe doctrine of vertical character regarding L.A. Instead, it must be
realistic and accept that L.A as well as China’s presence in it, are the other two actors for
L.A, which means, the relationship in L.A has nowadays a necessary triangular character(depending also on the uncertainties of the EU’s role therein).
On the other hand, and systemic constraints notwithstanding, we cannot ignore theundeniable weigh of Hillary Clinton’s words when saying that for the US, China has
become: “the most important bilateral relationship in the world during the current century”(Clinton, 2008). Under said perspective according to Watson, the future of US relations
with L.A should be read.

PART II: Erikson / Jiang
In this part we proceed to analyze the second US strategist, Daniel P. Erikson jointly with
the Chinese one: Jiang Shixue. Erikson focused on identifying the sources of tension
between the US and China when related to L.A, and also the possible ways forcooperation. In this sense his approach is similar to the triangular view of Watson. Yet he
begins by observing that the Obama administration in fact has not succeeded inarticulating as yet a strategy to get the commitment of China as a responsible stakeholder
in our region. Namely, he starts in the point in which Watson had arrived. Keeping in mind
such general approach, let us go deeper into the five points he selected to sustain his
approach. We are going to analyze them in as far as they relate to L.A: (1) what he calls“the politics of posturing”, (2) China’s economic relation with L.A, (3) crisis management,(4) political and security concerns, (5) the Taiwan factor.
Section A. The politics of posturing
Erikson point out that the current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton (even before she took
office) as well as the then candidate Barak Obama, figure among the first and highest
political leaders that started speaking of China as something of high concern and growing
challenges for their country in L.A. In fact since her beginning as Secretary of State she
took occasion of a question raised about the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, toblame the former administration for the Bush’s strategy to isolate not only Chavez but allother left leaning Presidents of the region: “it just did not work”. And she concluded bysaying: “if you look at the gains, particularly in L.A, that Iran is making and China is making,4

it’s quite disturbing” (Clinton, 2009) And Obama in his turn, ever since his first debate withJohn McCain emphasized: “We’ve got challenges, for example, with China, where we areborrowing billions of dollars. They now hold a trillion dollars’ worth of our debt. And they
are active…in regions like Latin America, and Asia, and Africa. The conspicuousness of
their presence is only matched by our absence, because we’ve been focused in Iraq”(Obama, 2009).
However, Erikson rightly observed that this is all what they have done. Namely, such
underlined threats have had no direct implications of concrete policies at all. Certainly suchstatements keep reflecting the Monroe doctrine but only “as an animating principle in US
foreign policy discourse, despite the lack of practical mechanisms for applying it” (Erikson
2011, 119-120). And the Chinese role in L.A can be viewed as a continuum that moves
from “strategic threat” to “responsible stakeholder”. Which results in a US policy much
confused and only reactive. Such pendulous oscillatory moving from a discursive clarity to
the confusion reflected in the absence of concrete program action, is what Erikson calls“the politics of posturing” (ib. 118) -note that from a different angle this comes near to what
Watson named “systemic constraints”
Jiang expresses a rather different perspective when stating the action of China in L.A andconvincingly rejecting the occasionally heard claim applied to China as having aneocolonial policy: “the most encompassing characteristic of neocolonialism is its
interference with the political destinies of sovereign states, (conversely) the terms of tradethat most Latin American countries enjoy with China are completely distinct from colonial
antecedents… Furthermore, while colonial powers sought to monopolize markets bydiscouraging the development of industries in their colonies, China invests actively intechnology transfer programs, which have assisted the development of local industries
across the continent”. And “Chinese enterprises that have begun to invest in Latin America
consider host-country poverty reduction a key objective; they are well aware of thecontinent’s past, and have adopted corporate responsibility programs to maximize local
benefit” (Jiang, 2011, 63). .
Section B. The economic relation of China with Latin America
Such discursive politics of posturing should be contrasted to the economic relationship ofconcrete facts that China has had with L.A, mainly during the current years of the XXI
century. A few strokes will suffice. Trade between China and L.A in the year 2000
ascended only to 10 billion dollars. In an impressive leap forward it reached 143 billions
the very year when the financial crisis exploded, 2008. Ever since China took the third
position as the major commercial partner of our region. Of course, it is still far from the 560
billion of the US/L.A and the 250 billion of the EU/L.A. Yet such leap of 14 times the initialin only eight years speaks by itself.
It is worth remembering that even if diplomatic relations started in the 1960s between
China and Cuba, the trade boom had as the launching platform the visit of President Jiang
Zemin in 2001 to several of the L.A countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Uruguay and
Venezuela). All of this was happening in coincidence with the China admittance to the5World Trade Organization in the same year. Such visit was still strengthened with Hu
Jintao’s visit in November 2004 (Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Cuba) and next year his visit
to Mexico and Canada.
Jiang Shixue comments such facts in the following way: ““China’s relationship with
Latin America has never been more intense and multifaceted than at present. Just twomonths later, after Chinese president Hu Jintao visited Latin America in November 2004,
Vice President Zeng Qinghong also visited. Similarly, President Hu Jintao went to Latin
America in November 2008 and Vice President Xi Jinping followed in early 2009. No othercountry has ever sent top leaders to Latin America with such great frequency…, in October
2008 China’s entrance into the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB, -or BID in
Spanish) was approved… (and this) will permit China and Latin America to exchange
market information, harmonize approaches to development and governance, and generallybuild a better understanding of each other” (Jiang, 2011, 59).
The country with the biggest commercial exchange is Brazil. Xinhua News Agency
reported for the year of 2008, 48 billions. After Brazil, Mexico and Chile with 17.56 and17.5 billions respectively, and Argentina with 14.4. With lesser amounts Venezuela, Peru,
Panama and Colombia. Jiang still formulates another apparently unexpected perspective:“China is interested in Latin America’s economic and political history because, as amember of the developing world, China can draw lessons and insights from the region’s
multiple paths of development” (ibid, 61).
Section C. Third to fifth points.
Point third, the crisis management, in a way deals once more with an aspect of economic
relations. But what is of big relevance here is the ex post-factum trust generated among
Latin Americans, as they realized that the main factor for them to cross over the 2008
international financial crisis -not only not seriously affecting them but even allowing themgrow- was their strong interaction with China. And the World Bank acknowledged that inthose years 52 million people in the region were released from the poverty line. Such trust
was also taken by sevefral L.A countries as a result of mutual interdependence andcooperation.
Yet at the same time they do not forget that historically they have been adversely affectedby previous crises coming from the North: not only the 1929 crisis but also the 1981-1982
US recession that had as a consequence what has been known as “the lost decade for
L.A”. In September 2008 there was fear in L.A of liquid currency lack due to the quick
descent of US trade. Yet such fear was solved with Chinese support. China for example,
injected big amounts of liquid money in exchange for future acquisition of L.A products.
Here Jiang Shixue states: ““rather than suppressing commodity prices and maximizing
the price of manufactured goods as colonial systems did, engagement with China hasgenerated the opposite results. Chinese demand has driven up community prices, while
the products that China exports are affordable even for economically challenged sectors in
Latin America” (ibid, 55).
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Point 4th –politics and security concerns- is taken by Erikson mostly to firmly state that:“there are few signs of any real frictions between the United States and China in the region”(Erikson, 2011, 125) and this is one of his major positions. He says that some highly
delicate issues have been sorted out without real frictions. For example, taking the
Venezuela case it became clear that China has not given signs to second President
Chavez anti-US policy; in the Cuba case even if China needs buying the Cuban nickel she
has no pretension that Cuba ‘buys’ the Chinese socialist model; and in relation to the US,
experience shows that for many years they have endured cooperating in the common anddaily use of the Panama channel without frictions. And in point 5 –theTaiwan factor- it isclear that there are several L.A and Caribbean countries that hold diplomatic relations with
Taiwan and not with China. However China’s view of the whole situation with L.A is one ofrespect to those countries, respect which maintains the will of cooperation.
Erikson concludes arguing strong for steady cooperation among the three poles of thetriangle (as Watson did). He proposes that such cooperation plausibly achieved throughmultilateral institutions like the Inter American Development Bank or the Organization of
the American States (OAS) is a very fertile ground for big and long lasting joint projects.
They could start a new cooperation era in the continent.
On his side, Jiang supports with hard facts the need for cooperation between China andL.A: “It is my contention that the relationship (is) more accurately described as ‘SouthSouth cooperation,… (and many) points suggest fertile ground for mutually beneficial
cooperation between China and Latin America. China is a large nation with abundantresources, but in per capita terms is limited…: In 2007, China’s oil reserves were about
two billion tons (or 1.6 tons per capita) and output was 190 million tons. According tocurrent levels of production, the world’s known oil reserves will near depletion inapproximately fifty tears, but in China, reserves will last for only eleven years (see: CASS,
2007), Furthermore, by 2020, China will be self-sufficient in only five of the nineteen major
metal minerals” (Jiang 2008, 58).

CLOSING REMARKSThe present paper begun contrasting the paradoxical situation reflected in our two
epigraphic sentences. They embodied on the one hand, the risk and real danger of hardly
competing for L.A resources seen by the two big world powers as strategic resources.
Such situation could lead to rude competing strategies that do not exclude fights and evenwars. On the other hand, if we look at the problem from the straight view point of strategics,
we recalled Sun Tzu approach stating what is really the best of all strategies.
Even if we are separated from Sun Tzu for over 2000 years, the analysis of the L.A
current situation led us to see that for the first time the Monroe doctrine no more applies
since such current situation urges for a triangular approach in which all three actors shouldbe playing their role while taking always into account the other two players standing. Our
three analyzed strategists showed us that a cooperation attitude is not at all a “wishful7thinking” but a realistic way to step into the new globalization scene-stage. Not
subordination but interdependence and cooperation are the only acceptable rule for a
global world.
Under such unavoidable situation our first remark does intend to call attention to thefact that the present and near future situation may well offer to Latin America an
extraordinary opportunity to: (a) intensify its search for a medium and long lasting strategy
of its own in its dealing with these and other macro-regional powers, and (b) an opportunity
also to position itself as a macro-region of the world able to have a saying in the future of
globalization.
And our second and final remark wants to be devoted to Japan. Will perhaps Japan, who
is another world power that from past decades has been most powerfully bringing to theinternational forefront the issue and practice of cooperation, transform the triangle into a
more fruitful square? If this will hopefully happen, it then be a joint work of all four for a
civilizational project of the planet that is not just a continuation of the Western project. It is
my personal contention that the Japanese cooperation strategy will be his best way to
stepping as well into the new globalization scene-stage, -making it into a truly future worldof celebration.

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