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[ 184 ] asia policy China´s Expansion into the Western Hemisphere: Implications for Latin America and the United States Riordan Roett and Guadalupe Paz, eds. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2008 • 276 pp. editors’ executive summary This book analyzes China’s increased presence in Latin America and considers the implications for relations among the U.S., China, and Latin America. main argument Beginning with President Hu Jintao’s state visit to South America in 2004, China has experienced a growing trade relationship with the exporting countries of the region. China´s interest, to date, appears to be in securing guaranteed access to the commodities and raw materials of the area. This book argues that there is no reason to believe that this commercial relationship will become increasingly geopolitical in the future. policy implications • There is no evidence that Beijing has any interest in identifying with the antiU .S. government rhetoric of countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The Chinese leadership appears very aware of the need to act carefully in a region that has long been seen as a U.S. “neighborhood.” • China’s diplomatic relations with the region are part of Beijing’s expanding “South-South” diplomacy. Diplomatic outreach to Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America represents a maturing of China’s foreign policy in the last 20 years. • Chinawillcontinuetopursueincreasinglyactive,butpeaceful,participation in multilateral organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, and will seek support from its allies in the “South” to do so. In turn, Beijing will support efforts by the emerging market economies to gain greater space in negotiations such as the Doha Round of the WTO. [ 185 ] book reviews China on a Roll in Latin America, so Who Cares? William Ratliff A review of Roett and Paz’s China’s Expansion into the Western Hemisphere China’s Expansion into the Western Hemisphere is intended to assess the implications of China’s “growing economic, political, and security influence” in the Western Hemisphere (p. 1). The twelve authors of eleven chapters come from universities, institutes, and international organizations in China, Latin America, the United States, and Europe. Co-editors Riordan Roett and Guadalupe Paz, from the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), provide an introduction that is also something of a conclusion, touching on the major points of the book. Jiang Shixue, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Xiang Lanxin, a professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University and at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, provide often differing Chinese perspectives, while Robert Devlin, of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, focuses on China’s economic rise in the region. Other authors provide views from the different regions covered in the book and discuss South-South relations, Latin winners and losers in trade with China, and Latin America as an energy supplier. Chapters on China’s policies toward Africa and Southeast Asia put Sino-Latin ties in a broader context. Conspicuously missing from a book on the strategic and other impacts of Chinese foreign policy, however, are analyses by U.S. Sinologists who have a comprehensive grasp of China’s history and foreign relations. Most of the comments on U.S. security interests are by the editors and two of the more probing foreign authors, Xiang and Argentine professor Juan Gabriel Tokatlian. But these analyses still fall short of a unified appraisal from the U.S. perspective that would place Latin America in the broader context of China’s emerging global strategy and evaluate the real or imagined challenges China’s links to Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Beijing’s views on Chavista-oriented populism and other issues, pose for the United States. Most of the contributors agree that “China’s strategic agenda with Latin America is driven primarily by economic interests” (p. 16) and is “characterized by pragmatism and caution and led by necessity and william ratliff is a Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and at the Independent Institute and has written on Sino–Latin American relations for 40 years. He can be reached at . [ 186 ] asia policy opportunity” (p. 3). Even Xiang, who focuses more on geopolitical issues, agrees that China’s drive into Latin America...

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