ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the standpoint of governance, how China's economic concerns over resource scarcity and its political commitment to non-intervention have shaped and been transformed by its relationship with South America. Venezuela's political and economic flat lining is the first significant challenge that has arisen in China–South America relations since the boom of the twenty-first century. The Chinese Communist Party was most vocal on matters that concerned sovereignty, external interference, and the inequities intrinsic to the structure of the international economy – matters which politically united China with many Latin America and the Caribbean countries. Due to the lack of formal diplomatic recognition on both sides of the Pacific, these early economic exchanges were conducted on a 'people-to-people' basis. At any rate, in the wake of China's Tiananmen Square student massacre of 1989, the China–South America relationship became more business-like and arms-length on China's end.
