Americas Quarterly - Winter 2012

China’s Global Rise LOWELL DITTMER

than $3 billion in 2000 to almost $50 billion in 2010. But Mexico, unlike Brazil, does not have big commodity exports and has incurred a massive trade deficit, with the value of imports ($45.6 billion) running at 10 times that of exports to China ($4.2 billion), according to 2010 figures. Despite NAF TA, Chinese exports to the U. S. exceeded those of Mexico by 2003. China has been Mexico’s main target for anti-dumping actions at the W TO.

Thus the arrival of a huge South-South trade partner, first deemed an unalloyed boon, appears increasingly to be a double-edged sword. But where does it cut? To divide the continent geopolitically (northern tier anti-Bolivia) and competing industrialization ambitions (which create tensions with Argentina, Mexico and Brazil). 6

Asia is the largest beneficiary of China’s economic upsurge. China has displaced the U. S. as the biggest trade partner of economic powerhouses Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, which together form one of the world’s biggest value-added, export-oriented production chains. China has attempted to complement its economic influence with a cordial “good-neighborly diplomacy” ( mu-lin waijiao) with its neighbors. This has involved shifting from a preference for bilateral relations to multilateralism in tandem with the regional regime-building efforts of ASEAN. Thus China joined APEC in 1991 and the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1994, initiated the ASEAN plus three talks (including Japan and South Korea) in 1997, and in 2010 formed the ACF TA—the world’s largest preferential trade agreement and one that enabled China to displace the U.S. as ASEAN’s largest trade partner.

Central Asia was cultivated indirectly (via Moscow)
during Sino–Soviet normalization talks (1982–1989). Ties
have strengthened since the disintegration of the Soviet
Union, at first to curb collusion in separatist tendencies
on China’s western frontier and later in pursuit of com-
mercial deals. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization
has allowed China access to the region’s abundant re-
sources without overtly threatening Russian hegemony
in its former republics. Thus China now has a pipeline to
Kazakhstan and equity ownership of 25 percent of the
oil produced there, as well as a gas pipeline to Turkmen-
istan. Although the rapid growth of the Chinese market
has helped smooth relations, China’s Asian ambitions
are greater than elsewhere, involving not only trade but
security and territory, with greater attendant friction.

The arrival of a huge
South-South trade
partner, first deemed
an unalloyed boon,
appears increasingly
to be a double-
edged sword. But
where does it cut?
The arrival of a huge
South-South trade
partner, first deemed
an unal,loyed boon,
appears increasingly
to be a double-
edged sword. But
where does it cut?

Lowell Dittmer is professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-editor of China, the Developing World, and the New Global Dynamic.