China’s rise in Latin America and the Caribbean 1990–2019: navigating perceptions in the relationship

Abstract

To date, perceptions of China's rise in relation to US hegemony in the international realm has not escaped scholarly scrutiny. For the period 1990–2019, the International Relations literature has made a somewhat copious contribution to the broader debates on the US and China. Within the Sino-Latin America Caribbean (LAC) discourse, the implications of China's ascent for US interests in the region is an underlying concern. The region is considered salient in broader power configurations as a result of its geostrategic positioning in relation to the US. However, perceptions pertaining to the triad of interests in the space account largely for powerful states in the dynamic. Despite the ambiguous perceptions associated with a rising China in the international realm and the Latin America Caribbean region's strategic position, rather than being preoccupied with ideas of the ‘China threat’, these states appear to have largely bypassed the more threatening rhetoric associated with China's rise in the period under scrutiny. In seeking to bring Latin America and Caribbean states into the discourse, the article examines how benign perceptions shaped the region's relationship with China. The argument is made that Latin America and Caribbean states sought to frame and navigate their relationship with China largely on the premise of economic opportunity amidst a firmly embedded US role inside the region which further repudiated ideas of the ‘China threat’ in the engagement. In unpacking the argument, the discussion seeks to show that more favourable images of China's economic ascent punctuated LAC states responses to China and that such states have been driven by a high level of economic pragmatism in the relationship. It also illustrates that the underlying hegemonic order has practical effects and more subtle manifestations inside LAC states which mitigated against perceptions of threat in China's rise in the region.