China Engages Latin America:
Tracing the Trajectory
Adrian H. Hearn and José Luis León-Manríquez
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011
Hardcover, 325 pages
115
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FIRST LOOK
The best new books on
policy, economics and
business in the hemisphere.
During the early 1990s, many Latin American and U.S. ana- lystsexpressed concerns about
an Asian giant that was buying Brazilian iron ore and investing in Mexican manufacturing, while at the same
time showing signs of out-competing
Latin American and U. S. firms in the
region. That giant was Japan.
Hysteria heightened and academic
research accumulated. But today few
people worry about Japan’s role in
the region—despite the fact that it is
a top-five trading partner and has a
large diaspora that includes Peru’s Alberto Fujimori, a former (now jailed)
Latin American president.
Is history repeating itself? The new
source of hand-wringing in the region
is China, which, like Japan years earlier, is portrayed by many as stealing
Latin American jobs, plundering the
region’s resources and creating diplomatic alliances that could erode the
rule of law. At the same time, some
U. S. observers see China’s inroads as
a threat in the U. S.’s backyard.
How do we make sense of China
and Latin America? Are China’s ever-
expanding ties a significant threat to
Latin American development and/
or U.S. strategic interests in the re-
gion? These are the questions that a
burgeoning group of scholars are be-
ginning to ask. Among them are the
editors of China Engages Latin Amer-
ica: Tracing the Trajectory—Adrian
H. Hearn of the University of Syd-
ney and José Luis León-Manríquez
of the Universidad Autónoma Met-
ropolitana in Mexico City. This is a
must-read for those seeking to bet-
ter understand Chinese engagement
in Latin America.
