Introduction: Popular Economies and the Remaking of China-Latin America Relations

Abstract

Chinese investments and loans have increased rapidly over the last fifteen years in Latin America and the Caribbean, as has state-to-state cooperation. From the megaprojects of the Nicaraguan Canal and the transcontinental Brazil-Peru railway reminiscent of Imperial investment fever a hundred years ago to countless road construction projects across the region, Chinese state-supported enterprises are at the forefront of the present round of infrastructure building. This investment envisions a new century of trans-Pacific connections and global commerce. Latin America's politicians and private contractors collaborate with Chinese enterprise across diverse sectors agribusinesses in soybean production in Brazil and Argentina, and mining, oil, and natural gas operations in the Andean countries praising the scale and pace of investment as a milestone for Latin America's future economic growth. Activists and scholars see the same development as entrapping the economy in neo-extractivism, in a renewed dependence on primary resources that violates indigenous, social, and ecological rights.