China-Latin America Military Engagement: Good Will, Good Business, and Strategic Position

摘要

Over the past several years, the People s Republic of China (PRC) has expanded its military ties with Latin America in multiple important ways. High-level trips by Latin American defense and security personnel to the PRC and visits by their Chinese counterparts have become commonplace. The volume and sophistication of Chinese arms sold to the region has increased. Officer exchange programs, institutional visits, and other lower-level ties have also expanded. Chinese military personnel have begun participating in operations in the region in a modest, yet symbolically important manner. Military engagement among Western countries traditionally has focused on securing greater capability for confronting an adversary, including alliances and base access agreements, that confer strategic geographical position. By contrast, Chinese military engagement primarily supports broader objectives of national development and regime survival. This includes building good will, understanding, and political leverage among important commercial partners and technology sources, creating the tools to protect PRC interests in countries where it does business, selling Chinese products and moving up the value-added chain in strategically important sectors, and positioning the PRC strategically, even while avoiding alarming the United States over its activities in the region. Chinese military engagement with the region may be understood in terms of five interrelated types of activities: (1) meetings between senior military officials, (2) lower-level military-to-military interactions, (3) military sales, (4) military-relevant commercial interactions, and (5) Chinese physical presence within Latin America with military-strategic implications.