Area Development and Policy

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China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with

Latin America and the Caribbean: the case of
China–CELAC Forum

Javier Vadell

To cite this article: Javier Vadell (2021): China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin
America and the Caribbean: the case of China–CELAC Forum, Area Development and Policy, DOI:
10.1080/23792949.2021.1974907

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23792949.2021.1974907

Published online: 07 Oct 2021.

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AREA DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY
2021, VOL. 00, NO. 00
https://doi.org/10.1080/23792949.2021.1974907

RESEARCH ARTICLE

China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin

America and the Caribbean: the case of China–CELAC
Forum
Javier Vadell

ABSTRACT
Drawing on Qin Yaqing’s notion of relational power, this article analyses how, why and through
what mechanisms Chinese international initiatives diffuse Chinese ideas and practices and facilitate
the projection of its power in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In an era of crisis of
multilateralism and neoliberal globalization and confronted with the global COVID-19 crisis,
Chinese cooperation with a politically fragmented region that has for long been dominated by
the United States has involved the deployment of bilateral, minilateral and multilateral relation-
ships from the foundation of the China–CELAC Forum and the extension of the Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) to embrace LAC up until the relaunching of the Health Silk Road. Adaptive processes
of multilevel cooperation and the projection of soft power contribute to the emergence of a hybrid
geopolitical landscape.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Accepted 26 August 2021; Received 18 May 2021
KEYWORDS
China, Latin America and the Caribbean, Belt and Road Initiative, relational power, soft power,
multilateralism

摘要
中国与拉美和加勒比地区的双边和小边关系:以中拉论坛为例。Area Development and Policy. 本文借鉴秦亚
青的关系权力概念,分析了中国的国际倡议是如何、为何以及通过何种机制传播中国的思想,将其付诸于实
践,并促进其在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区(LAC)的权力投射地。在这个多边主义和新自由主义全球化危机的时
代, 面对全球新冠病毒危机,中国与长期由美国主导的政治分裂地区的合作涉及到双边、小边和多边关系的
部署,包括从中国-拉共体论坛的成立,到‘一带一路’倡议向拉美地区的延伸,再到“健康丝绸之路”的重新启动,
中国与拉共体国家的双边和小边关系不断发展。多层次合作和软实力投射的适应性过程导致混合性地缘政
治格局的出现。
关键词
中国, 拉美和加勒比, ‘一带一路’倡议, 关系权利, 软实力, 边主义

CONTACT Javier Vadell javier.vadell@gmail.com

Department of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas), Belo Horizonte, Brazil

© 2021 Regional Studies Association

2 Javier Vadell

RESUMEN
Relación bilateral y minilateral de China con Latinoamérica y el Caribe: el caso del Foro China–CELAC. Area
Development and Policy. Aprovechando la noción del poder relacional de Qin Yaqing, en este artículo se
analiza cómo, por qué y a través de qué mecanismos las iniciativas internacionales de China difunden las
ideas y prácticas chinas y facilitan la proyección de su poder en Latinoamérica y el Caribe (LAC). En una
época de crisis de multilateralismo y globalización neoliberal y enfrentados a la crisis mundial de la Covid-
19, la cooperación china con una región políticamente fragmentada que ha estado dominada durante
mucho tiempo por los Estados Unidos ha supuesto el desarrollo de relaciones bilaterales, minilaterales
y multilaterales, desde la fundación del Foro de China–CELAC y la extensión de la iniciativa de la Franja y la
Ruta incorporando a Latinoamérica y el Caribe hasta el relanzamiento de la Ruta de la Seda Sanitaria. Los
procesos de adaptación de la cooperación de varios niveles y la proyección del poder blando contribuyen al
surgimiento de un escenario híbrido de tendencias geopolíticas.
PALABRAS CLAVE
China, Latinoamérica y el Caribe, iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta, poder relacional, poder blando,
multilateralismo

АННОТАЦИЯ
Двусторонние и минилатеральные отношения Китая с Латинской Америкой и Карибским
бассейном: пример Форума Китай–CELAC. Area Development and Policy. Опираясь на концепцию
силы отношений Цинь Яцина, в этой статье анализируется, как, почему и с помощью каких
механизмов китайские международные инициативы распространяют китайские идеи и практику
и способствуют распространению влияния этой страны в Латинской Америке и Карибском
бассейне (LAC). В эпоху кризиса многосторонности и неолиберальной глобализации, на фоне
глобального кризиса COVID-19 китайское сотрудничество с политически фрагментированным
регионом, в котором долгое время доминировали Соединенные Штаты, включает
развертывание двусторонних, минилатеральных и многосторонних отношений с момента
основания Форума Китай–CELAC и расширение инициативы ‘Один пояс – один путь’ для охвата
LAC вплоть до возобновления Шелкового пути здравоохранения. Адаптивные процессы
многоуровневого сотрудничества и проекции мягкой силы способствуют возникновению
гибридного геополитического ландшафта
КЛЮЧЕВЫЕ СЛОВА
Китай, Латинская Америка и Карибский бассейн, инициатива ‘Один пояс – один путь, сила
отношений, мягкая сила, многосторонность

INTRODUCTION

Contemporary relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Latin America
and the Caribbean (LAC) are undergoing significant change in consonance with the trans-
formations of the global economy. China’s official invitation to the region to take part in the
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) at the ministerial meeting of the China–CELAC1 Forum
(Wang, 2018), and the emergence of the LAC as the biggest per capita recipient of Chinese
coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines (Knoell, 2021) imply the development of a more complex,
broader and diverse relationship between China and LAC (Vadell, 2018).
China’s economic expansion is changing the international global order and the institutions
of global governance. These changes have important implications for the diffusion of ideas and

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 China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin America: the case of China–CELAC 3

practices, shaping identities, values and norms between international actors. The notion of
a ‘Rising China’ implies a more proactive foreign policy (Qin, 2014; Yan, 2014) that
inexorably will change the global economy, geopolitics, ideas and values. Some scholars have
been debating the so-called ‘China Model’ and the potential alternatives for the ‘Western
model’ (Breslin, 2011; Ferchen, 2013; Zhao, 2010); others are focusing on a Beijing
Consensus and its potential diffusion Kennedy, 2010; Ramo, 2004); others prefer the notion
of a ‘civilization state’ (Jacques, 2009) or a ‘civilizational sate’ (Zhang, 2012) to characterize
China. Recently, Vangeli (2018) applied the concept of symbolic power/domination to under-
stand the role of China at the 16+1 Forum, and others connected the new Silk Road with
a kind of soft power (Kickbusch et al., 2018).
Based on the theoretical foundations of the relational international relations (IR) (Qin,
2018), the main question asked in this article is: How, why and through what mechanisms do
Chinese international initiatives facilitate the projection of its power and the diffusion of ideas
and practices with respect to LAC? The paper concludes with a related open research question
concerning the impact of the expansion of BRI investments and ‘health aid’ in COVID-19
pandemic times on the current fragmented regionalism of the LAC.
Relational IR theory (Qin, 2018) and the concept of soft power (Nye, 1990, 2004) frame
this article, which involves a historical dialectic interpretive approach to understanding the
projection of Chinese power in the Global South with specific reference to LAC. As far as
sources are concerned, this research drew on official documents of CELAC, the China–
CELAC Forum and the Chinese government, mainly two policy papers on LAC (China,
2008, 2016), along with other published work on this subject.
The 21st century saw the launching of a new phase in the China–LAC relationship, more
economically oriented at first (2001–11), and more strategically and politically oriented in
the second decade. Chinese LAC policy papers and the ministerial conferences of the China–
CELAC Forum held in Beijing in 2015 (China–CELAC, 2015a) and in Santiago, Chile, in
2018 (China–CELAC, 2018b) reinforced these trends.
These initiatives provided the institutional background for cooperation, trade and invest-
ment between China and the LAC countries. In Santiago, China invited the region to
participate in the BRI, the global Chinese interconnectivity project. Furthermore, as the
COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world, Chinese aid acquired new complexity, bringing
the Silk Health Road and associated Chinese soft power (Kickbusch et al., 2018; The Lancet,
2017) to the region.
These steps in the development of the China–CELAC Forum reveal China’s gradual and
consistently growing presence in the region and its economic importance. The main hypothesis is
that the PRC is contributing to a reconfiguration of the development path, loans, aid and
investments through relational soft power using different institutional mechanisms. The first
one, the minilateral experience of the China–CELAC Forum, has been crucial as an institution
promoting dialogue and cooperation between LAC and the PRC. China–LAC rapprochement
reshapes CELAC into a ‘strategic vehicle’ for regional cooperation (Bonilla Soria & Herrera-
Vinelli, 2020), strengthening the minilateral relationship with China. The second is the embryo-
nic bilateral–multilateral BRI that is a part of China’s global multilateral interconnectivity
initiative for interconnectivity and is becoming the crucial infrastructural tool-shaping China–
LAC relations through the institutional route traced by the China–CELAC Forum, The BRI
network links China to the Global South through a set of multilateral/bilateral dialectic tactical
treaties. These institutions operate as if they were the arteries through which soft power, ideas
and practices spread in a relational process connecting the expansion China to the LAC region.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section addresses some
theoretical considerations. The third section focuses on the creation and evolution of the

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4 Javier Vadell

China–CELAC Forum. The fourth section analyses the ‘arrival’ of the BRI in LAC before
and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The final section concludes.

ECONOMIC POWER AND THE RISE OF CHINA: DIALECTICS OF HARD/

SOFT POWER IN DEVELOPMENT POLICIES

China’s economic power altered the stratification of international order with ideational and
institutional implications. The diffusion of ideas, norms and practices implicitly takes into
consideration cultural aspects in relation to Chinese development experience. Nevertheless, it
is not our intention to give ontological priority to practices, ideas and norms as Adler and
Pouliot (2011) uphold, or to link the notion of Chinese ‘soft power’ exclusively to the
Confucian concept of ‘harmony’ from a Foucaultian perspective, as in the case of Hagström
and Nordin (2019), but starting from another relational background or ‘relational practice’ as
highlighted by Qin and Nordin (2019, p. 2), taking inspiration from the Confucian commu-
nities and dialectical method of thinking.
The ‘relational’ perspective of Qin Yaqing is our first source of theoretical insight into not
only Chinese thinking about the international system, but also the changes as processes that
are renewed and simultaneously absorb existing structures (Qin, 2014, 2016). A process is
considered:

an open becoming, contrasting with ‘being’ or ‘entity.’ An entity is a static being with fixed properties,
while a process, with ever changing relations, is an ongoing becoming with unlimited possibilities.
International society is a process rather than an entity and a becoming rather than a being, for it is open
by definition and becoming in nature. Global governance is also a process in which rules and norms are
created to govern and manage ongoing relations. Similarly, co-operation is a process of co-changing
and co-evolution through maintaining, managing, and harmonizing relations among actors. (Qin,
2016, p. 37)

In other words, to interpret ‘communities of practice’ is to focus on ‘relations rather than atomistic
entities’ (Qin & Nordin, 2019, p. 6). Relationality is based on ‘Chinese zhongyong dialectics: “self”
and “others” are immanently dependent on each other for their existence’ (p. 6), consequently for
coexistence ‘actors must have relational identities’ (p. 7) constructed and reconstructed in
a process of relationality. As Qin states: ‘The role of ideational structures has been further
accented through the emphasis on international norms’ (Qin, 2016, p. 35). So, how international
norms spread and construct consensus is a major research agenda in IR theory.
Differently, Joseph Nye’s notion of ‘soft power’ is ‘associated with intangible power
resources such as culture, ideology, and institutions’ (Nye, 1990, 2004). This concept is related
to persuasive power, attraction, imitation and a kind of ‘moral leadership’ (Hunter, 2009, p. 7).
Nevertheless, this research interprets the soft power concept not as a product of given
characteristics such as culture, societal practices and values, and ‘charm’ foreign policy, but
as an extended outcome of ‘material’ hard power, as a process and acting relationally and
dialectically. Hard power, the other side of the coin, ‘is accomplished mainly by military force,
or at least a credible threat of it; less “hard” techniques might be payments, even bribes, or
institutional pressures’ (p. 3).
Conceptually, we do not separate Chinese material hard power from the soft power
expansion promoted and enhanced through the diffusion of norms and practices. Different
to Nye’s formula where soft power has an independent role, our approach is related to Antonio
Gramsci’s notion of hegemony (Gramsci, 2011), which states that coercion and consent,
respectively related to hard and soft power, are theoretically and practically associated and

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 China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin America: the case of China–CELAC 5

inseparable (Li, 2020, p. 280). Therefore, there is an intrinsic ontological and reciprocal
relation between the growing strengthening of Chinese economic and military capacities
with the key three elements of Nye’s soft power.
Therefore, the diffusion of Chinese normative power (Kavalski, 2013) and diffusion of
practice generated by China’s foundational institutional role is conductive to the promotion
and enhancement of its soft power. In fact, it is an outcome of Chinese hard power based on
its economic strength and material capabilities understood as a ‘totality–relationality’. In
territorial space, the diffusion of norms and practices represents the projection of Chinese
power via an institutional network as part of a ‘hybrid Confucian geopolitics’ (An et al., 2021).
It proposes to overcome the zero-sum game of power of conventional geopolitics (p. 9)
establishing a world system based on the principle of a Community of Shared Future for
Mankind (CSFM;人类命运共同体, rénlèi mìngyùn gòngtóngtǐ).
This process evolves in three ways. First, it evolves from a multilateral path, with the
experience of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)2 that ‘maintains a qualified
relation with [the] BRI’. In other words, the multilateral experience of the AIIB creates
financial links between projects connected with the BRI and other projects (Mendez & Turzi,
2020, p. 72). Second, it evolves through a Chinese-led minilateral network (Wang, 2014)3
such as forum diplomacy. Third, it evolves through bilateral agreements. These three move-
ments take place simultaneously, but not necessarily in coordination with one another.
Adopting a different approach from Hagström and Nordin (2019), who link Chinese soft
power to the Confucian concept of ‘harmony’, we consider that Chinese soft power, which is
presented also in the expansion of its culture and relations between peoples, is based on the
idea of CSFM as a key notion, proposed by former Chinese President Hu Jintao and
reinforced by President Xi Jinping. CSFM is the ideational amalgamation of China’s power
projection and presents itself as the Chinese response to the common challenges of an
unstable, increasingly dangerous planet, and a world living under a strong environmental crisis.
The main idea appeared in September 2011 in the White Paper on Peaceful Development,
and later in a speech by the then-Prime Minister Wen Jiabao during the XIV China–ASEAN
Summit. This expression was taken up by Hu Jintao in the opening speech of the XVIII
National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012 (Hu, 2012). Nevertheless, it was
Xi Jinping, in his famous 2015 speech on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the United
Nations (UN), who expressed the idea of building ‘a community of shared destiny for
mankind’ (Xi, 2015), which includes five aspects: political association, security, economic
development, cultural exchanges and the environment. This perspective was reaffirmed in
the speech at the UN in January 2017 (Xi, 2017c), and in October of the same year in the
report of the XIX National Congress of the Communist Party of China: the essential need to
‘build a community with a shared future’ (Xi, 2017b).
In a 2018 reform, the notion of a CSFM was incorporated into the Constitution of the
PRC as part of Xi Jinping’s thinking about socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new
era. Thus, the CSFM became a key objective of China’s soft power in IR and it goal of
creating a new international order and new convivium, which includes ‘relationality, human
authority and symbiosis’ (Staiano, 2018, p. 50).

THE CHINA–CELAC FORUM AND RELATIONAL SOFT POWER

The contemporary relationship between LAC and China leads to a discussion about devel-
opment that goes beyond the neoliberal model and is inserted into the critical context of the
end of the commodity boom (Vivares, 2018) in a traditional area of US political and economic
sphere of influence since the assertion of the Monroe Doctrine.4

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6 Javier Vadell

In LAC countries, the China–CELAC Forum became an opportunity to diversify the

possibilities of cooperation with extra-regional actors, especially with China, and to try to
overcome the rigid conditions of neoliberal economic programmes. The China–CELAC
Forum is one instance of Chinese multilateral/minilateral/bilateral diplomacy in action and
through which it spreads and nurtures its ‘relational soft power’. It could be described as
a holistic foreign policy involving concentric circles that complement one another (Figure 1).
Wang’s approach of subgroup minilateral agreements is very useful for our purpose of under-
standing China’s modus operandi in the Global South: ‘which is the gathering of a sub-group
of countries within or outside a multilateral institution to solve a problem when the multi-
lateral institution is unable to reach agreements among its members’ (Wang, 2014, p. 1).
China–CELAC is an example of ‘forum diplomacy’ with Chinese characteristics (Alden &
Alves, 2016) as a driver of the diffusion of practices, norms and ideas regarding new forms of
institutional arrangement.
Since China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, there has been
a boom in trade between LAC countries and China. Since 2005, aid, trade, investments and
loans from the PRC have tended to grow, and this trend has been consolidated. The growing
presence of China in the Global South is being ‘formed through the “bifocal lens” of
“opportunity” and “threat” paradigms’ (Pavlićević, 2018, p. 702). This economic rapproche-
ment involved an eminently bilateral approach and brought about an impressive growth in
bilateral trade. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC), the region’s trade with China has grown substantially since 2002,5 but with
a significant deficit for the region (ECLAC, 2018b). Although China has become the main
trading partner of most LAC countries, one problem was the degree of specialization and
‘reprimarization effects’ in the bigger countries such as Brazil and Argentina (Gorenstein &

Figure 1. China’s holistic foreign policy.

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 China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin America: the case of China–CELAC 7

Ortiz, 2018), a matter of concern for ECLAC whose 2018 report shows that exports from the
region to China were concentrated to a few commodities (ECLAC, 2018b, p. 42).
Nevertheless, as Estay (2018, p. 61) pointed out, that problem seems to be a South
American more than a LAC dilemma.
In terms of financing, Chin and Gallagher (2019) stress that the Chinese policy banks, the AIIB
and the New Development Bank (NDB), are the main protagonists of infrastructure financing in the
Global South, and especially in LAC, suggesting that since the start of the 21st century, ‘China has
become the world largest Development Bank’ (Gallagher, 2018, p. 1). According to data from the
American Dialogue, without considering the AIIB,6 the Silk Road Fund and the NDB:
two of China’s policy banks, the China Development Bank (CBD) and the Export–Import
Bank of China (CHEXIM)[,] already hold more assets than the combined assets of the
Western-backed multilateral development banks. CHEXIM and the CBD have over US$2.5
trillion in assets, whereas the Western-backed banks hold just about US$1.4 trillion.
(Gallagher et al., 2018, p. 314)
The prominent role of minilateral rapprochement with China occurred via CELAC, which was
created in 2010 with the explicit support of the two largest LAC countries, Mexico and Brazil,
indicating a degree of geopolitical convergence. It is a mechanism for regional dialogue marked by
political and ideological diversity with profound social heterogeneities. As Kennedy and Beaton
(2016) pointed out, CELAC is an institution established to affirm and consolidate LAC identity,
strengthening its historical roots and vindicating the region as a zone of peace. CELAC presents
itself as a new regional political cooperation platform, bringing together the 33 LAC countries in
a space for political dialogue without the presence of the United States and Canada.
Through the advice of ECLAC, CELAC is becoming a minilateral forum and a vehicle to
facilitate cooperation with extra-regional powers (Bonilla Soria & Herrera-Vinelli, 2020;
Sanahuja, 2015; UE–CELAC, 2015). ECLAC is gradually consolidating itself as an advisory
body to CELAC, supporting and accompanying its activities (Bárcena, 2015; Camhaji &
López-Araiza, 2015). The creation of the forum was meant to consolidate links and business
networks aiming at stimulating South–South cooperation (CELAC, 2014, p. 45), in the light
of earlier bilateral agreements between the parties.
The First Ministerial Conference of the China–CELAC Forum, held on 8–
9 January 2015 in Beijing, was the first step in the establishment of an institutional framework
for cooperation, trade and investment between the PRC and the LAC countries. At the
Second Conference of the China–CELAC Forum, held on 21–22 January 2018 in Santiago
de Chile, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, formally invited the 33 countries to
participate in the BRI (Wang, 2018), resulting in the production of a special document to
initiate a gradual process of inclusion (China–CELAC, 2018a). This announcement came in
a period of growing regional fragmentation, ‘whose main feature is the increasing hetero-
geneity within and between different integration projects’ (Estay, 2018, p. 47), and after
a period of robust trade between China and LAC in the first decade of the 21st century.
Two Chinese policy papers relating to LAC countries, published in 2008 (China, 2008) and
2016 (China, 2016), overlap with previous bilateral treaties and the minilateral relations via the
forum. In this regard, forum diplomacy and the expansion of the BRI facilitate the diffusion of
norms, ideas and principles that affect the behaviour of others altering their trajectory (Vangeli,
2018).
The diffusion of normative South–South principles and the idea of a cooperation platform
can be observed in Beijing’s declaration at the China–CELAC Forum of the principles of
‘respect, equality, pluralities, mutual benefit, cooperation, openness, inclusion and non-
conditionality’ (China–CELAC, 2015a, p. 2). These principles provide a normative and
procedural multilateral framework that differs from the postulates of North–South cooperation
and its aid normativity (Dunford, 2020; Vadell et al., 2020).

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8 Javier Vadell

According to the ECLAC report, infrastructure investments were the focus of Chinese
investments in LAC in recent years, reaching 52% of the total (ECLAC, 2018a, p. 23). At the
CELAC summit in Havana, Cuba (CELAC, 2014), President Xi Jinping announced invest-
ments for the region in the order of US$250 billion over the next 10 years (China–CELAC,
2015c). In the same year, a Co-operation Plan was signed in Beijing at the first China–
CELAC ministerial meeting, when the Chinese government announced that China would
increase its trade with LAC to US$500 billion and would make investments in the region in
the amount of US$250 billion over the next decade (ECLAC, 2018b, p. 24).
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report of 2019 showed that
‘global foreign direct investment fell by nearly a fifth in 2018 to an estimated $1.2 trillion from
$1.47 trillion in 2017’ (UNCTAD, 2019). Specifically, foreign direct investment (FDI) for LAC
was ‘slightly negative, with a drop close to 4 per cent from 155 billion USD in 2017 to 149
billion USD in 2018; China is one of the few international exceptions in 2018, with FDI of 142
billion USD and an increase of 3 per cent’ (Dussel Peters, 2019, p. 2; UNCTAD 2019).
In a context of falling commodity prices and as part of an effort to overcome a narrowly
commercial focus, the China–CELAC Forum was constituted as the fundamental tool of PRC
projects in Latin America. The preoccupation of some major countries such as Brazil and Argentina
with economic reprimarization and the need for infrastructure and industrialization involving high
technologies increased demands for a greater diversification of economic relations with China and
expansion into areas such as manufacturing, high-
technology and the production of value-added goods. The Beijing Summit reflected two major
changes in China’s relationship with LAC. First, it involved a multilateral–minilateral rather than
a bilateral focus within the framework of the Chinese worldwide network of forum diplomacy
paradigm. Second, it consolidated a pattern of relations based on a formal institutional periodicity to
strengthen the ‘integral strategic partnership’.
In this sense, the ‘LAC–China Cooperation Plan (2015–2019)’ (China–CELAC, 2015b), with
its 13 action points, and China’s 2016 Policy Paper for LAC became the normative framework of
China–LAC relations and the main institutional bridge connecting to the BRI and the Health Silk
Road in pandemic times.
This innovative framework does not promise success but tries to overcome the one-size-fits-all
path to development promoted by the West in the Global South since 1945 (Lin & Wang, 2017,
p. 3). Lin and Wang’s (2017) proposal for a New Structural Economics (NSE) highlights the role of
differentiated national development possibilities. The NSE proposal is not equivalent to Chinese
foreign policy for development in the Global South, but Lin was nominated as one of the Chinese
Communist Party’s (CCP) key advisors in preparations for the 14th Five-Year Plan, covering 2021–
25 (Tang, 2020).

THE BRI ARRIVES IN LAC: INTERCONNECTIVITY WITH CHINESE

CHARACTERISTICS

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is divided in two components: the Silk Road Economic Belt,
which is a series of land routes connecting the PRC with the rest of Eurasia, and the Twenty-first
Century Maritime Silk Road, whose maritime routes will cross and interconnect China, Southeast
Asia, South Asia, East Africa and the Mediterranean. The initiative aims at building roads, railways,
gas and oil pipelines, harbours, new air routes, digital communications aimed at creating commercial
cooperation bonds, and stimulating the development of economic activities, trade and a variety of
types of interconnectivity. In recent years emphasis on a Digital Silk Road through cooperation in
the digital economy, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and smart cities has increased, as has
health cooperation. It is an open and inclusive initiative (Liu & Dunford, 2016) that changes the

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 China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin America: the case of China–CELAC 9

economic geography through massive infrastructure investments, and also challenges Western
globalization (Vadell et al., 2019).
In 2015, the Chinese government published an official document highlighting five basic
objectives of BRI cooperation: (1) policy coordination; (2) facilities connectivity; (3) unimpeded
trade; (4) financial integration; and (5) people-to-people bonds (China, 2015). As pointed out by Xi
Jinping, although inspired by the old Silk Road, the BRI does not intend to replicate that
geographical trade space: the Chinese government document ‘Vision and Actions’ emphasizes
that the PRC uses the metaphor of ‘the Silk Road spirit’, which refers to antiquity, as a cultural
value to stimulate international cooperation (China, 2015; Liu & Dunford, 2016, p. 4). In the words
of the Chinese government, the spirit of the Silk Road was for centuries based on ‘peace, coopera-
tion, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit’ (National Development and
Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Commerce of the People's
Republic of China, 2015).
In 2017, President Xi Jinping signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the
World Health Organization (WHO) that endorsed international health regulation and pro-
moted health security on the Silk Road (Adhanom, 2017). In August 2017, China organized
the Belt and Road High-Level Meeting to promote health cooperation. This meeting resulted
in a document called the Beijing Communiqué of The Belt and Road Health Cooperation &
Health Silk Road, which was adopted by WHO, the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), among other partners.
In a first stage, the BRI interconnected Asia, Europe and Africa; and in a second moment,
it reached LAC, with an explicit invitation to participate in the BRI in 2016. In 2017, there
was a turning point when Panama signed a MoU cooperation agreement under the BRI
umbrella, after establishing diplomatic relations with the PRC. A total of 18 countries
followed this path: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba,
Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Peru,
Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, and Uruguay (Koop, 2019).
According to Bárcenas, ECLAC Executive Secretary, LAC countries expect that China
will continue to invest through the BRI (ECLAC, 2018a). In this sense, the BRI guarantees
continuity of the financing that awakened many controversies and hopes as well as foreseeable
concerns on the part of US officials and elites.
The expansion of the BRI to the LAC region occurred in a global economic scenario of
uncertainty, but within the framework of an advanced process of closer commercial (China is
now LAC’s second largest trading partner with a growing trend) and financial relations
between China and the region. ECLAC highlights the problem of LAC countries’ trade
specialization with China, since, as already mentioned, LAC exports are mostly of raw
materials, especially from South America. Nevertheless, ‘while the region is geographically
remote from those areas, maritime, air and digital routes can bridge that distance, strengthen-
ing trade, investment, tourism and cultural links’ (ECLAC, 2018a, p. 95).
A 2018 report by Moody’s risk assessment agency indicated that Chinese investments in
the region bring benefits (Moody’s, 2018, p. 9), although it did not deny some eventual risks
or problems, such as the lack of transparency in some processes, as was pointed out by Lin and
Wang (2017). Investments in the electricity sector and in infrastructure have grown and
surpassed the initial investments in extractive sectors. This process occurs with strong support
from China’s policy banks, as the Moody’s report showed.
In this regard, the detailed report entitled ‘China’s Engagement with Latin America and
the Caribbean’ and produced by a group of researchers for the US–China Economic and
Security Review Commission acknowledged that China has become the second largest trading
partner, the major lender (Gallagher & Myers, 2018) and the fourth largest investor in LAC

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10 Javier Vadell

countries, leading to an expansion which ‘is eroding US economic dominance in the region’
(Koleski & Blivas, 2018, p. 28). This dilemma is not related to regional development and its
potential for expansion with positive effects, but to the loss of US political influence in the
region. ‘Chinese financing has supplanted the United States and other international lenders as
a major source of capital to the region. This financing has weakened the ability of the United
States and other multilateral organizations to influence governments’ behaviour’ (Koleski &
Blivas, 2018, p. 29). The latest Annual Report of the US–China Economic and Security
Review Commission of the US Congress also spells out a warning regarding China’s influence
via the BRI on the international system. The report highlights the challenges and potential
dangers posed by the expansion of Chinese investments and the role of the People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) in this process. However, the mistrust reflected in the report is attributed to the
cooperative features of the BRI and not to concrete threats to development goals (US
Congress, 2019). According to Maliszewska and Van der Mensbrugghe (2019, p. 19), the
BRI induces trade cost reductions (travel time and vehicle operating costs). For this reason,
a finding of the report ‘indicates that the BRI would be largely beneficial, but some countries
outside the initiative could suffer from trade diversion’.
The BRI is not only an essential economic tool of Chinese global economic power, but also
a kind of an inclusive, embedded globalization infrastructure skeleton (Jabbour et al., 2021),
supported by the three concentric circles of cooperation, holistic Chinese foreign policy backed
by the idea of a CSFM, and relational soft power.

CHINA–LAC IN PANDEMIC TIMES: THE EXTENSION OF THE HEALTH SILK

ROAD

As already mentioned, the Belt and Road Health Cooperation & Health Silk Road was
inaugurated in 2017 as an extension of the BRI (Vadell et al., 2019). However, planning began
in 20157 with strategic cooperation objectives in the area of health divided in three phases:
short-term goals (2015–17), medium-term goals and long-term goals. This initiative implies
establishing cooperation networks between neighbouring countries and greater participation of
China in health governance institutions at regional and global levels.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated Chinese health cooperation with other countries.
In the case of Sino-Latin American relations in development cooperation, there is no Chinese
homogeneous strategy for the region because, among other variables, the LAC is fragmented with
multiple nation-states with different histories, experiences, and paths to economic and social
development (Malacalza, 2020, p. 398). In an area of strong historical US influence, Chinese
relational soft power in LAC treads in ways that are cautious, adaptative and flexible.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China has been at the forefront of health
cooperation in what was been labelled as ‘mask diplomacy’. This diplomacy tactic consists of
a Chinese cooperation policy to provide aid to a wide range of countries dramatically affected
by COVID-19, spreading from Southeast Asia to Iran and Italy and reaching LAC countries
as soon as March 2020. Two main features of Chinese aid can be distinguished. The first is
the discursive, symbolic and cultural aspects of Beijing’s health cooperation policy. The second
is the effective donation of medical equipment, software and specialists.
The aid provided by Beijing during the pandemic operated at two levels, namely, mini-
lateral and bilateral. Minilaterally, CELAC is the only institution for dialogue between LAC
officials and Chinese specialists. Mexico, holding the CELAC pro tempore presidency, played
a prominent role in this approach. In January, under Mexican leadership, the agency stimu-
lated a consensual communication to follow up on coronavirus outbreaks around the world. In
March 2020, CELAC and Mexican Foreign Minister Ebrard led a virtual ministerial meeting

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 China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin America: the case of China–CELAC 11

of health ministers with the Chinese National Health Commission, through its Vice-
President, Dr Zeng Yixin. A total of 30 ministers and organizations such as the Pan
American Health Organization (PAHO), ECLAC, the Caribbean Community
(CARICOM), and Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) participated.
In July, Foreign Minister Ebrard and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi headed another
video conference with other LAC chancellors (China–LAC, 2020).
The second dimension is bilateral diplomacy. At this level, China’s action was immediate.
Building on the experience gained through the deployment of donations to Southeast Asia and
some European countries, Beijing managed to mobilize resources ahead of any other interna-
tional power to assist LAC. Huawei donated two thermal cameras in March to Argentina.
The Chinese municipalities and provincial capitals of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Chongqing
donated materials (respirators, masks and general medical supplies) to Argentina, Brazil and
Ecuador. Major companies, mostly Chinese non-public and state-owned enterprises, sent
large donations to the region. They include COFCO, Huawei, Alibaba Foundation,
Sinopec, BGI, Three Gorges Corporation and state-owned banks such as the Bank of
China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and the China Development Bank.
Furthermore, in this complex scenario, Chinese civil associations in LAC countries were very
proactive in making donations (Wilson Center, 2021).
As Sanborn (2020, p. 2) states:

China’s response to date has been timely, strategic, and significant. As the first cases of COVID-19
appeared in Latin America, China moved quickly to rebrand itself as a donor rather than a recipient of
aid. As the U.S. interrupted international supply chains and hoarded supplies domestically, China was
able to harness its advantage as the world’s leading producer of medical supplies, to donate large
quantities to nearly all countries in the region.

Bilateral diplomacy was therefore multidimensional, involving a range of diverse actors (includ-
ing non-public and state-owned companies and civil society), and multilevel, as it encompassed
not only country-to-country relationships (traditional intergovernmental diplomacy) but also
subnational aid (from municipal and provincial units to their counterparts or to national
governments) and relations between large Chinese companies and their philanthropic
branches and national/subnational LAC governments.
In complex ways the BRI arrived in LAC not just in a context of global economic
uncertainty, but also in the difficult circumstances associated with the COVID-19 emergency.
The presence of China in LAC implies not only cooperation, but also disputes in a traditional
US security area. It is also noteworthy that the pandemic has accentuated the features and
contradictions of the cooperation–conflict logic between China and the United States in the
region. This dispute was turned into a ‘discursive war’ about how to deal with the coronavirus.
Nevertheless, this moment of conflict concealed a geostrategic dispute between the two powers
and US concerns about growing Chinese technological and normative soft power.

CONCLUSIONS

China’s economic expansion is shaping regulations in adaptive and complementary ways within
and outside existing governance institutions, and Chine is becoming a powerful rule setter/maker
in world system as it undergoes a degree of reordering. Through a focus on the China–LAC
relationship, the mechanisms through which and the reasons why Chinese initiatives facilitate the
projection of its relational soft power and the diffusion of ideas and practices has been outlined.
These initiatives have multilateral and minilateral characteristics and unfold in adaptive, flexible
and non-synchronous ways through bilateral agreements, multilaterally, and gradually through

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12 Javier Vadell

the AIIB and the BRI, and minilaterally through the China–CELAC Forum. The relationality
approach of IR and dialectical methodology were fundamental analytical elements of a holistic
understanding of these processes and their internal contradictions.
The current regional fragmentation of the LAC is crucial to an understanding of the
creation and evolution of a fragile CELAC and the process of consolidating relations with
the PRC via a China-led regional forums policy. This fragmentation is subsumed in
CELAC. Nevertheless, and paradoxically in the absence of defined formal institutions, the
region’s ‘porosity’ (Katzenstein, 1996) facilitated links with the PRC via China–CELAC
Forum talks on development and health cooperation in a multidimensional and multilevel
manner.
Through these flexible institutional arteries, Chinese soft power flows improving coopera-
tion in LAC in a kind of ‘structure of inclusive networks’ (Katzenstein, 1996, p. 150). The
arteries link with the infrastructure of the BRI project as a new engine, now in an embryonic
stage. To a significant extent, the experience of the BRI and its Health Silk Road dimension
stimulated interconnectivity and started to provide a normative framework for this expansive
process of an ‘open becoming’ and in relational manner.
The arrival of the BRI in the LAC region is intended to fill the interstices of countries’
economic needs (investments in infrastructures projects and the lending of financial resources)
in an adaptive process. This process involves a gradual creation of a new institutionalization as
part of China’s global inclusive strategy, Chinese support for existing governance institutions
with a genuine multilateralism and an ending of unilateral politics, and China playing a crucial
role in promoting embryonic new forms of globalization with Chinese characteristics, or
‘another’ globalization (Xi, 2017a).
This approach coincided with strong support for South–South cooperation principles
upheld since the Bandung Conference and the eight principles for ‘Economic Aid and
Technical Assistance to Other Countries’ proposed by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai
in 1964. As Dunford (2020, p. 6) pointed out, these principles remain in place and are an
essential part of Chinese identity. The Chinese official document of January 2021 entitled
‘International Development Cooperation in the New Era’ (China–SCPRC, 2021), published
in pandemic times, can be interpreted as ‘Bandung reloaded’ where China presents itself as
a provider of global public goods, opening the possibility for the diffusion of soft power in an
original way in the Global South, aiming at a new regime (Domínguez Martín, 2018)
regarding aid and cooperation for development. This diplomatic identity coherence, since
the 1949 revolution, largely explains why South–South cooperation in LAC is strengthened in
line with China’s economic strength and commercial expansion.
The pandemic accelerated this ongoing process in a region that was historically under
direct US influence. Some analysts pointed to a ‘New Cold War’ (Kynge et al., 2020), others
warn about the ‘danger of Westlessness’ (Nye, 2020), while yet others have begun praying for
a new liberal order (Ikenberry, 2020). The pandemic exacerbated US–China rivalry, while
Chinese aid far exceeds US aid in LAC. While Washington proved incompetent in control-
ling the pandemic domestically, Beijing advanced with its health diplomacy.
China’s ‘masks and vaccine diplomacy’ may represent a relaunching and a projection of the
Health Silk Road,8 an important component of the BRI, as an active deployment of Chinese
relational soft power. In a context of China–US rivalry, this regional health diplomacy is
shaping a hybrid Confucian geopolitical landscape (An et al., 2021) in LAC (and the world)
that deserves to be followed with great attention.

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 China’s bilateral and minilateral relationship with Latin America: the case of China–CELAC 13

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions and
constructive comments, and also the editor for the last revision of the early manuscript.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico

e Tecnológico (CNPq Brazil) [304103/2018-7].

NOTES

1. Comunidad de Estados Latino-Americanos e Caribeños, or Community of Latin American

and Caribbean States, for its acronym in Spanish.
2. The AIIB is the first international multilateral organization not led by the United States
since the end of the Second World War.
3. The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), created in 2000; the China–
Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum (CCETCF), created in 2003; the
Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking
Countries (FETCCPC), created in 2003; the China–Arab States Cooperation Forum
(CASCF), created in 2004; the China–Pacific Island Countries Forum (CPICF), created in
2006; and the China–CELAC Forum, officially created in the first Ministerial Meeting, in
2015.
4. The Monroe Doctrine was a foreign policy outlook relating to US influence within the
Western Hemisphere dating from the early 19th century. It was conceived mainly by the
Secretary of State of then-US president James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, in 1823.
5. According to ECLAC data, between 2003 and 2013, trade between the LAC region and
China grew almost nine-fold, from US$29 billion to US$259.6 billion.
6. In LAC, until April 2021, Ecuador, Uruguay and Argentina were full members of the
AIIB. Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile are prospective members.
7. See http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/chinahealth/2015-12/18/content_22774412.htm/.
8. China’s new health geopolitics around the world and in the region is not an isolated
circumstantial event. It is founded on the initiative launched in 2015, known as the Health
Silk Road, a complement of the BRI. The health dimension was considered as part of the first
documents issued by the government to think about the BRI in a holistic sense of cooperation.
As indicated in the 2015 Vision and Actions document (China, 2015).

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