by Richard L. Harris
The Western academic literature and media coverage of the increasing economic and political relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) and the Latin American and Caribbean countries contains biases, fears, and misinformation about those relations. Closer examination reveals that Chinese trade, investment and loans have supported the left-leaning governments in the region that are attempting to develop alternative postcapitalist societies. China’s leaders seek allies among the developing countries to join with them in creating a new multipolar and more equitable global order. The PRC has launched a new economic strategy that makes consumer demand the main engine of China’s economic development. It seeks to boost productivity, reduce the country’s growing income disparities, and pursue an environmentally sustainable path of economic development based on advanced high-value and clean manufacturing technologies and renewable sources of clean energy. The PRC’s goal of developing a new ecological civilization will provide opportunities for the Latin American and Caribbean economies to export a more diversified basket of goods to China and attract Chinese investments and loans into new areas such as renewable energy.
