ABSTRACT
From 1947–1991 links between India and Latin America were largely non-existent, with geographic and cultural distance acting as powerful barriers. However, the reform and opening-up process in India was kick-started in 1991. Factors that led to the surge in Indian links with Latin America and the Caribbean included the ending of the import substitution industrialization approach to economic development that was followed in much of Latin America and was replaced by an export-led model, and the emergence of Asia as a key growth pole in the world economy. The main breakthrough came in the 2000s, when the ‘Indian miracle’ started to make headlines. As a rule, the right in Latin America is fixated on the United States and on Western Europe. The left is more open-minded and more interested in the rest of the global South. This led to the creation of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) trilateral dialogue forum and of the informal grouping of large emerging economies, comprising Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, the People’s Republic of China, and South Africa (BRICS). Furthermore, Chile signed trade agreements with the Republic of Korea (2003), China (2005) and India (2006), and Venezuela’s oil sales to India increased dramatically, so also did Argentina’s soya deals with India. This chapter traces these developments, while also making some comparisons with the policies followed by the ‘other Asian giant’, China, towards LAC.
