ABSTRACT
Viewed from our perspective of the twenty-first century, the answer is definitely positive, and it would not be wrong to start with the last decade of the previous century, the 1990s. Yet the relationship between China and East Asia and Latin America is older than a couple of years. It started in the second half of the sixteenth century thanks to the yearly fleet connection between Acapulco and Manila. Does it therefore make sense at all to put China and East Asia at the beginning of this chapter into the same basket? Are we able to verify times of keen competition between China and East Asia as far as Latin America is concerned? Why and when did China enter into a tighter relationship with Latin America than other Asian countries? What are the salient and promising features of the current situation? How is the present situation of the highly visible presence of China perceived in Latin America? And what about its implications for third parties, particularly the US and Europe? These are the questions to be dealt with in this chapter.
