ABSTRACT
In Chapter 8, R. Evan Ellis examines China’s fast expanding relations with the Latin American nations. Ellis highlights China’s primarily economic objectives in the region, but also notes Beijing’s regional efforts to foster multipolarity together with like-minded regional states. China’s economic involvement has grown rapidly, but the impact has been mixed. Chinese investment and financing have boosted growth and precipitated an impressive improvement in Latin American port, rail, and road transportation, especially along the Pacific coast. Yet, they have also weakened the domestic manufacturing sector, thus making Latin America more susceptible to boom and bust cycles in primary goods, and produced a large and growing number of “white elephant” projects that are either not completed or quickly go bankrupt.
