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This paper analyzes two aspects of China's economic relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). First, we examine the extent to which China's economic growth is affecting trade and investment flows between China and LAC. Second, we analyze the extent to which the emergence of China as a world exporter affects the ability of LAC countries to compete in world markets bath in terms of exports as well as in the capacity to attract foreign investment. For each of these questions, we provide a critical assessment of a new body of work in this area, as well as offer a series of analyses that build on and confirm some of this previous work. Furthermore, we offer implications for policy and future research. We show that there is an emerging consensus regarding China and LAC. With respect to trade and investment flows, China accounts for a significant amount of the boost in LAC exports and foreign investment in recent years, but is exporting more than it imports. In terms of global competitiveness, LAC is not significantly threatened by Chinese exports in global markets, with the exception of Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If one interprets China's sizable rise in Latin America as an unprecedented phenomenon, it follows that the concurrent story of declining U.S. influence in the region is an event hastily acknowledged at best and ignored at worst. In this article, we ask whether Chinese economic statecraft in Latin America is related to the declining U.S. hegemonic influence in the region and explore how. To do so we analyze foreign direct investments, bank loans, and international trade from 2003 to 2014, when China became a major player in the region. We use data from 21 Latin American countries, and find that an inversely proportional relationship exists between the investments made by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), bank loans, manufacturing exports, and the U.S. hegemonic influence exerted in the region. In other words, Beijing has filled the void left by a diminished U.S. presence in the latter's own backyard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using online Chinese communities as primary sources, this article studies public perceptions in China of Latin America in terms of how the region is seen as part of the Third World while also offering China a convenient backyard by which to access the First World United States. Codified online public opinion on four different Latin American topics is then analysed and compared with official opinion: how “Latin Americanization” becomes China's nightmare, how the Latin Americans should learn from the “China model,” how the Latin Americans were being discriminated in the H1N1 epidemic, and how the “Latin American card” to balance the United States is emphasized. The conclusion suggests that only when the stereotypes discussed in this article are dismissed will the true value of Latin America gradually obtain any standing in the eyes of ordinary Chinese and will the Latin American mission of the Chinese government be fully understood by its subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China's increasing, and increasingly visible, engagement in Latin America has led to a variety of analyses, many based on either international relations notions of realism or international political economy precepts of trade. Rather than seeing China's rhetoric on its relations with Latin America as fluff that conceals a harder reality, this article takes rhetoric seriously as a device of “framing and claiming”: a way in which political elites in China interpret the fast-changing developing world and China's place in it. The article explores how political elites have understood the sources of China's own domestic development and then projected those notions on to other parts of the developing world, through earlier “fractal” logics of development whereby each state repeats one model of development in its own way and a currently dominant “division of labour” logic that posits one integrated model of development whereby complementarity and comparative advantage hold sway. The article concludes with a comparison of China's relations with Peru and Brazil, suggesting that China's bilateral relations with Brazil indicate a newer, emerging rhetoric of global partnership based on equality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been considerable concern in Latin America over the implications of increased competition from China for local industry. These concerns include the possibility of “deindustrialization,” the increased “primarization” of the region's exports and the difficulties of upgrading manufactured exports into higher technology products. This article examines the impact of Chinese competition both in the domestic market and in export markets on Brazilian industry. It documents the increased penetration of Chinese manufactures in the Brazilian market and the way in which Brazilian exports have lost market share to China in the US, European Union and four Latin American countries. Brazil, because of its more developed and locally integrated industrial sector, is not typical of other Latin American countries and the article also discusses the relevance of the Brazilian experience for the region as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mexico's economic relationship with China has intensified substantially in the last decade. Based on an increasing literature on the overall and aggregate relationship, this analysis proposes a detailed examination of the auto parts-automobile chain, which is of utmost importance for both countries and will be significant for understanding the future trade relationship between them. In order to understand the industrial organization of Mexico and China, the article first gives an overview of the international trade and industrial organization patterns. After establishing the characteristics of Mexico's and China's legal framework, production, employment and trade, the analysis concludes with a group of proposals to improve binational co-operation. Both countries – China interested in increasing its export platform based on Chinese parts brands and Mexico supplying parts and components and providing decades of experiences in international networks – can benefit from these suggestions and overcome current tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Has China been a hegemonic challenge to the United States in Latin America in recent years? The article explores this question by setting a comparison with historical cases of instances of hegemonic challenge in Latin America, searching for similarities and differences, and looking for makers of rivalry as a way to start to distinguish perception from reality. I stress the instrumentality of framing issues, since they serve for internal mobilization and for control of allies. The article also attempts to illuminate the issue of how the United States has reacted to China's growing presence in an area historically considered within its sphere of interests, or “backyard,” and about the dialogue between the United States and China about the region. It provides insights on the United States, China and Latin American countries’ policy makers’ thinking, collected through off-the- record interviews and closed-door debriefings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented for articles within this issue concerning the theme of foreign relations between Latin America and China, with topics including globalization, economic development and hegemony.