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Latin America is a critical region for analyzing China's economic statecraft. Following the Monroe doctrine, Latin America has long been seen as part of the sphere of U.S. influence. For the purpose of studying the effectiveness of China's economic statecraft I will focus on two countries that stand on opposite extremes: Brazil and Mexico. Both countries happened to be important target states (strategic partners) of China's economic statecraft in the region, albeit for different political and strategic goals. In this paper I will compare the different domestic political and economic conditions, interests and institutions in these two countries to explain why China has made greater progress in projecting its economic power through trade and investment to pursue its political goals with Brazil, but has not succeeded in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper links China's pattern of infrastructure lending to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with China's own development experience in this regard. It raises the question whether Chinese infrastructure investments in LAC have the potential to promote sustainable development in the region. The paper consists of four parts. Part 1 outlines China's massive domestic infrastructure construction projects as a specific development strategy which has contributed considerably to the country's rapid internal development, but has simultaneously given rise to complex dynamics of social and environmental risk. Part 2 assesses the strategies involved in China's infrastructure investment in LAC. Part 3 identifies key actors involved in China-LAC infrastructure cooperation and how they relate to different ways of financing infrastructure projects. Part 4 focuses on policy guidelines for managing the social and environmental risks of infrastructure projects. The paper concludes that more research, more capacity-building, and new forms of multinational development cooperation are needed to strengthen the social and environmental policies associated with China's infrastructure investment in LAC countries, to help uphold existing social and environmental standards, and to extend project benefits more effectively to local communities and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tries to analyse the roles played by three categories of Chinese actors (the state, enterprises and quasi-government organizations) involved in China's engagement in Latin America to develop economic ties with the region. The first section focuses on the role of the state (the Chinese government) which has maintained a strong focus on the 'top-down-design' in Sino-Latin American economic cooperation by issuing a set of policies and undertaking a number of practical measures. The second part of the paper analyses the role of Chinese enterprises including both state-owned and private ones by analysing two cases of Chinese enterprises which on the one hand, implement government policies and on the other sometimes act as pioneers. In the last section, through the case study on the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) which is one of the few quasi-government organizations involved in China's foreign economic cooperation and also, without doubt, one of the most influential. Its role as platform for economic cooperation has been acknowledged by the 'top' (Chinese goverenment) and the 'bottom' (enterprises) in China and by Chinese enterprises and their counterparts in Latin America. The paper shows that none of the Chinese actors can take the place of the other in the economic cooperation between China and Latin America; instead, the roles of the three different categories of Chinese actors are complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]