A Source for Greater Peripheral Sovereignty or a New Axis of Dependency Relations?

During the last few decades, China has emerged an important player on the world economic stage, raising questions such as what is China’s ultimate destination, will it become a new hegemonic power, is China moving into the core? China’s role in Latin America has increased over time and it became the main trading partner of several countries, raising the question of to what extent there exist an opportunity for Latin America to break through and “develop”. This chapter considers whether China represents the opportunity for greater sovereignty for the peripheral countries or to what degree it is a new source of the dependency that will replace previous core hegemonic powers.