The re-emergence of China raises major issues for Latin Americans and Latin Americanists. Economically, the growth of China has been seen both as a threat and an opportunity for the countries of the region. The competitiveness of Chinese industry is affecting Latin American manufacturers both in their domestic markets and in export markets where Mexico and Central American countries exporting to the United States have been particularly affected. However, China has been an important market for exports of primary products (particularly soy, iron ore and copper) from Latin America and has also contributed to the rise in commodity prices on world markets since 2002, which has also benefited Latin American exporters. The continued growth of China during the global financial crisis has increased its importance as a market for several Latin American countries and has led some commentators to portray China as coming to the region's rescue. There are also, once more, high expectations of incoming Chinese investment, which have been fuelled by a number of recent high-profile acquisitions.
Politically, the growing relations between China and Latin America have both been welcomed in the latter for providing countries with more room for manoeuvre and given rise to concern in some quarters in the United States over the threat that China poses to its hegemony in the region. In terms of international relations, one of the key issues is the continued recognition of Taiwan by Paraguay and all the Central American countries apart from Costa Rica. The diplomatic competition between the People's Republic and Taiwan has been the dominant issue in terms of China's relations with Central America (and the Caribbean). A further issue is China's attraction as a model for other developing countries, whether seen in terms of the combination of an authoritarian regime with a market economy or as a state-led model of integration with the global economy in contrast to the Washington Consensus advocacy of a market-led approach.
The growing significance of relations between China and Latin America over the past decade has now started to generate an academic literature to which these three books are a welcome contribution. All three share some features. They are critical of the Washington Consensus, regarding it as having been a failure in Latin America. While not believing that the ‘Chinese model’ can be transferred, they tend to favour a more pragmatic approach to economic development with a greater role for the state, which they regard as the key lessons of the Chinese experience. They are also in the main written from a Latin American rather than a Chinese perspective. The authors are either Latin Americans or Latin Americanists, apart from a couple of contributions by Chinese scholars in the volume edited by Hearn and León-Manríquez.
They do, however, differ in emphasis, partly reflecting different disciplinary backgrounds. Gallagher and Porzecanski focus on the economic aspects. They have written several articles previously in this field, particularly on the competition from China faced by Mexico in the US market. The Dragon in the Room takes this analysis further. It develops the argument in relation to Latin America more generally, using data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. The authors provide an overview of the region as a whole, with chapters on the boom in commodity exports, the competition faced by manufacturers in export markets, and a more detailed analysis of high-tech exports. They then devote two chapters to more detailed analysis of Mexico, looking at the competition between Mexico and China in the US market and comparing the role of the state in the process of economic reform in the two countries.
Their approach is in the structuralist tradition and, while recognising the rapid growth of exports of primary commodities to China and the impact that spiralling Chinese demand has had on world prices for many of the commodities that Latin America exports, they are concerned at the implications of the division of labour that has emerged, with China specialising in increasingly sophisticated manufactures while Latin America has relied on a small number of unprocessed primary products. This has been accentuated by the effects of Chinese competition on Latin American exports of manufactures to the rest of the world, and to other countries in the region. The authors also compare unfavourably Latin America's, and particularly Mexico's, market-led approach to integration into the global economy with the more interventionist policies adopted in China.
Despite their negative evaluation of the overall impact of China on the region, the authors warn against blaming China for Latin America's problems. They argue instead that the latter needs to develop its industrial competitiveness and learn lessons from the Chinese experience, while maintaining sufficient ‘policy space’ to apply industrial and other development policies.
Both the other books reviewed here are edited collections. The contributors to Latin America Facing China: South–South Relations beyond the Washington Consensus apply an international political economy approach that incorporates more of the political and social dimensions of China's impacts in addition to the economic aspects discussed by Gallagher and Porzecanski. They share with the latter the view that contrasts China's successfully pragmatic, state-led strategy with the failures of neoliberal policies in Latin America. Indeed, they make explicit reference to the ‘Beijing Consensus’ as an alternative to the failed Washington Consensus in the region. They also share a belief that industrialisation and technological upgrading is the key to achieving higher levels of economic development, and express concerns that China's re-emergence is increasing Latin America's dependence on primary product exports and is a threat to significant sectors of Latin American manufacturing.
Apart from the introductory and concluding chapters by the editors, Latin America Facing China consists of eight case studies covering Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Central America. This is very welcome, since much of the literature on China and Latin America in the past has been quite general and has covered only some countries, most notably Mexico, in any detail. The chapters vary somewhat in terms of approach and depth. While some focus primarily on bilateral relations, others discuss the country's political economy more broadly, inserting China within this wider discussion. The chapter by Hogenboom on Mexico uses China as a lens through which to address Mexico's declining competitiveness and to critique the government's market-led approach, while Fernández's chapter on Chile is mainly a critique of that country's neoliberalism. On the other hand, the chapters on Argentina, Venezuela and Peru provide more extensive discussion of bilateral relations. Corrales' chapter on Venezuela contains a particularly interesting focus on the obstacles to increasing oil exports to China which helps explain why, despite Chávez's anti-US rhetoric, the United States continues to be the major market for Venezuelan oil. In their concluding chapter, the editors put the growing relations between China and Latin America in the context of the rise of the Left in the region and the demise of the Washington Consensus, arguing that the growing presence of China provides interesting possibilities for the region.
The third book, edited by Hearn and León-Manríquez, is the broadest of the three in its coverage and the most diverse in approach. The contributors come from a range of disciplines including anthropology, history, political science, economics and international relations. Like the Hogenboom and Fernández collection, this book includes chapters on China's relations with Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina and Central America (which also covers the Caribbean), and in addition one on Cuba, which, despite the significance of its relations with China, is rarely discussed in the literature on China and Latin America. The volume also contains six chapters discussing the region as a whole: two that focus on relations with the United States, two on the economic aspects of China–Latin America relations, and two overviews, one from a Chinese perspective and one by a US-based Latin American.
Because of its breadth and range of perspectives, this is the least cohesive of the three books, but it makes a useful contribution in terms of opening up new areas and questions for research beyond the economic and political issues that have dominated the literature up to now. A number of the contributors discuss Chinese migration to Latin America and the role of local Chinese communities, an issue that is not addressed by the other authors. Also, given that a number of the chapters cover the same countries dealt with in China Facing Latin America, they often complement each other. For instance, the chapter on Brazil by Maciel and Nedal provides a sophisticated analysis of both bilateral and multilateral relations, arguing that China emphasises the former (particularly the economic aspects) while Brazil emphasises the latter.
Taken together, these three books provide a welcome overview of the current state of knowledge on China and Latin America. There are a number of issues that they do not address or that are only touched on briefly and could provide an agenda for further research on the implications of China for Latin America. These include the environmental impacts of Chinese demand for, and investment in, resource extraction in the region; the effects of Chinese competition on Latin American workers; and the implications for poverty reduction.
