March 9, 2023 Updated: March 9, 2023
General Glen VanHerck,
Commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense
Command, testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in
Washington, DC on Capitol Hill March 24, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
U.S. generals have warned
about China’s aggressive expansion and influence campaign in South America and
the Caribbean, with Beijing investing in infrastructure while also pushing
authoritarian governance in the region.
The Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) “continues to expand its economic, diplomatic, technological,
informational, and military influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. The
PRC has the capability and intent to eschew international norms, advance its
brand of authoritarianism, and amass power and influence at the expense of
these democracies,” General Laura J. Richardson, Commander of the U.S. Southern
Command, said during a House
Armed Service committee hearing on March 8, referring to the Chinese regime by
its official name the People’s Republic of China.
The CCP has “expanded its
ability to extract resources, establish ports, manipulate governments through
predatory investment practices, and build potential dual use space facilities,
the most space facilities in any combatant command region.”
Richardson pointed out
that China has used the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to boost
its influence in Latin America. The region is home to 8 percent of the global
population, but it suffered 29 percent of the world’s COVID-19 deaths. She
estimates that 170 million people in Latin America are in poverty, with the
economies of various states in the region struggling.
Amidst this crisis, the
CCP came in with investments in critical infrastructure like highways,
electrical dams, deepwater ports, telecommunications, and so on, she said.
General Glen D. VanHerck,
Commander of the U.S. Northern Command, noted that China has made significant
investments in Mexico. Around 80 percent of Mexico’s telecommunications
equipment is provided by Chinese companies like Huawei, he said.
In the Bahamas, the CCP
is “aggressively pursuing their economic coercion,” he said. China has built
its biggest embassy in the world in the Bahamas, with a “very aggressive
ambassador who uses the information space to undermine us each and every day.”
Growing
Trade, Security Risk, Lack of Grand Plan
In her statement (pdf) before the House
committee, Richardson highlighted China’s growing trade with Latin America and
the Caribbean. In 2002, CCP’s trade with the region was only $18 billion.
Twenty years later in 2022, this has ballooned to $450 billion.
Richardson estimates that
this number will rise to $700 billion by 2035. The United States’ current trade
with the region is $700 billion, suggesting that America’s comparative trade advantage
is eroding, she said.
Beijing’s investment in
critical infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean is a major security
risk for the United States, Richardson said.
In any potential global
conflict, the CCP could “leverage strategic regional ports to restrict U.S.
naval and commercial ship access. This is a strategic risk that we can’t accept
or ignore,” she said.
Richardson pointed to
CCP-sponsored companies bidding on projects related to the Panama Canal, which
is a “global strategic chokepoint.” In Argentina, a CCP state enterprise is
looking to secure rights to build maritime installations near the port city of
Ushuaia that would “dramatically” improve Beijing’s access to Antarctica,
Richardson warned.
In an interview with
EpochTV last June, security expert Joseph Humire said that the United States
lacks a grand strategy to counter the expansion of Chinese influence in Latin
America.
As the United States has
been absent in the region for the past 30 years, China has “capitalized on the
opportunity,” he said. The Reagan government is the last American
administration that had a “broad policy” for Latin America with anti-communism
and the Cold War, Humire stated.
“If you go back 20 years
ago, China was a trade partner of only three countries … in South America. Fast
forward 10 years by 2010, [they are] the top trade partner of seven of the
twelve sovereign nations in South America,” he said. “Today, they are the top
trade partner of nine of the top sovereign nations in South America.”
Latin America’s growing
ties with China come at a great cost to the United States, Humire pointed out.
“We are not far away from the Chinese government having military outposts
inside Latin America, very close to the U.S. border.”
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