China’s Growing Arms Sales to Latin America

In recent years China has asserted itself as a key player in the global arms trade. Not only have both export volume and weapons quality increased rapidly, the range of customers China has been supplying has also expanded greatly over the course of the past decade. Latin America is one of the key regions into which Chinese arms have begun to pour. Yet while commentators of the past have doubted the strategic significance of China’s arms sales to this region — pointing to their relatively meager quantity and the fact that most Latin American states still rely on more established suppliers for their most important military hardware (see here, for instance) — there are signs that things may be changing.

Members of the Venezuelan army fly a Chinese-made K-8 jet in Barquisimeto (March 13, 2010).

Image Credit: REUTERS/Miraflores Palace/Handout

With next to no arms sales to the region before 2005, China is now a key supplier to Latin America. Venezuela continues to lead in China’s Latin American arms sales, with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimating that between 2011 and 2015 Venezuela purchased $373 million of Chinese weaponry. A $500 million deal in 2012 for weaponry including armored personnel carriers and self-propelled artillery ensures that this arms relationship is set to continue flourishing into the future.

4 Ways Latin America Can Achieve Energy Success

The rapidly shifting and challenging environment for the energy sector in Latin America offers an unprecedented opportunity for the region to rethink how it can better coordinate its energy sector and look toward building a comprehensive, integrated energy matrix. On July 1, all eyes will be on the leaders of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru – the founding member states of the Pacific Alliance – to see how the ambitious goal of energy integration can be advanced on the sidelines of the 11th annual Summit.

With 42 observer countries from South Korea to Sweden signed up and two—Costa Rica and Panama—pending ascension, the grouping has become a hot commodity. That is partly due to an outstanding record of achievement: the alliance has already integrated four national stock markets, erased a vast range of tariffs, introduced visa-free travel, and organized joint international trade missions.

The Growing Sino-Latin Energy Relationship

With Li Keqiang’s recent business and investment blitz through Latin America, many in the region are hopeful these increased commitments will result in expanding business and trade links between the two.

The energy sector represents one of the largest opportunities for expanding trade between China and Latin America. China has made a concerted effort to expand energy links in the region and to assiduously build up dependencies, especially in form of oil-backed loans. This has resulted in oil exports from the region realizing near double-digit growth to China over the past decade, a relationship that will continue to expand for several reasons.

What China's Eco Slowdown Means for Latin America

A looming slowdown in the Chinese economy promises trouble for China's economic partners in Latin America, especially commodity exporters. The growing relationship between China and Latin America is on display this week as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tours the region in a trip that will wrap up April 26. Wang is visiting Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina to discuss bilateral financing and trade deals.

China's slowing economy and potential for domestic economic instability threatens to sharply lower demand for key commodities exported by Latin American countries. Particularly vulnerable are countries such as Brazil, Peru and Chile that have seen China rise in importance as an export destination.

The End of the Latin American Left Will Hugo Chávez's revolution die with him?

ALVARO VARGAS LLOSA

The exact condition of Hugo Chávez continues to be a Churchillian riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The Venezuelan president, who won his third reelection last October and has been hospitalized in Cuba for many weeks with cancer, missed his own inauguration in January. In his absence, Vice President Nicolás Maduro, Chávez's hand-picked successor, has been left in charge of the government indefinitely. But Maduro is no Chávez, lacking both the charisma and the power base of Venezuela's mercurial leader. And it's not just a problem for the chattering classes in Caracas: The question haunting the Latin American hard left, which Chávez has dominated in the last decade, is who will take his place.

Can Europe and Latin America Meet as Equals?

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 26 2013 (IPS) - The European Union’s serious economic and financial crisis stands in stark contrast to the relative stability and decade-long growth enjoyed by Latin America and the Caribbean and could put the two blocs on equal footing, giving the Southern region more leverage to further its demands and economic growth.

From the European Union to Latin America, protestors have taken to the streets against austerity policies. Credit: Nikos Pilos/IPS

The European Union (EU) is set to meet with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) for a bi-regional summit in the Chilean capital of Santiago this Saturday, Jan. 26 and Sunday, Jan. 27.

The meeting will bring together heads of state or high government officials from the 60 countries that make up the two regional blocs, which have a combined population of 1.07 billion and strong cultural, historic and commercial ties.

But the process of forging these commercial ties has not been without its share of difficulties and setbacks, despite the fact that, as the founding documents of CELAC state, “the European Union is the top direct investor in Latin America and the Caribbean, its leading cooperator, and second largest trading partner“.

For Chilean political scientist Esteban Valenzuela, of the Alberto Hurtado University, the bi-regional summit represents an opportunity for Latin America.

“This is probably the ideal time to ask (the EU) to reach a more global understanding and make free trade and agricultural barriers a two-way street that will facilitate investments and allow Latin Americans to invest in their depressed markets,” Hurtado said in an interview with IPS.

It is an opportunity that Latin America must, however, seize “without arrogance”, as the current cycle of high prices of copper, gold, natural gas, oil and other raw materials in the region won’t last forever.

“There are indicators that reveal that China’s economic growth is ‘slowing down’ and that India is facing problems, and these indicators (are a warning sign that) call for enhanced dialogue in the region, (urging it) to seize the opportunity to improve public policies that produce high deficits,” he added.

Venezuela’s Neighbours Walking on Eggshells

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Jan 24 2013 (IPS) - Governments of countries in the Americas are relying on the passage of time and a relatively peaceful political atmosphere to sort out the unprecedented institutional situation in Venezuela, whose ailing president Hugo Chávez is out of the country, while the executive team tasked with carrying out his former mandate continues in office.