ABSTRACT
China-Latin America relations can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).1 China’s silk, porcelain and cotton yarn were shipped to Mexico and Peru as early as the middle of the Ming Dynasty. The Latin America-oriented agricultural plants, such as corn, potato, peanut, sunflower, tomato and tobacco, made their way into China and have become China’s popular agricultural products. There is also a claim that during a seafaring adventure some 600 years ago, the great Chinese sailor Zheng He and his fleet discovered the American continent 70 years earlier than Columbus.2 But the first official ties between China and Latin American countries were established between the 1870s and 1900s, when China’s last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), forged diplomatic relations with Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and Panama.
