Latin American Relations Research Articles

Latin American Relations with the Middle East: Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis, edited by Marta Tawil Kuri and Élodie Brun

Latin American Relations with the Middle East: Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis, edited by Marta Tawil Kuri and Élodie Brun

Anti-Communist Solidarity: US-Brazilian Labor Relations during the Dictatorship in Cold-War Brazil (1964–1985)

The last decade has witnessed a crusade by the Brazilian Right, losers of four consecutive presidential elections, to seize power through extralegal means. At the center of this was Operação Lava Jato, which used politicized corruption allegations to discredit the center-left Workers' Party and culminated in the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the imprisonment of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the election of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro. Although it has only gradually become clear, the United States played a key role through efforts to influence Brazilian prosecutors and judges via training programs and informal collaborations.Larissa Rosa Corrêa's monograph on US efforts to influence Brazilian trade unionism during the 1964–85 military dictatorship is thus remarkably timely. Anti-Communist Solidarity sheds light on the softer forms of power used by US empire. In the 2010s, US efforts to influence the Brazilian judiciary had little to do with eliminating corruption and everything to do with restoring US hegemony in an emerging oil-producing and diplomatic power. Similarly, as Corrêa conclusively demonstrates, efforts to bring collective bargaining to Brazil were less about empowering the Brazilian working class than weakening communists. These efforts were carried out by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and its American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), whose goals under George Meany were inextricably linked to those of US empire.Despite their history of mobilization against the military coups of the 1960s and the Central American wars of the 1980s, in recent decades US Latin Americanist scholars have de-emphasized explanations focused on empire. Thus, it is unsurprising that this vital book was written by a Brazilian, as Brazilian scholars have remained more attuned to the deleterious effects of US imperialism. This focus on US policy by a non-US historian is the book's greatest strength, not only in terms of theoretical orientation but also in terms of the sources consulted. As Alex Lichtenstein points out in his perceptive foreword, through her close examination of Portuguese sources produced by Brazilian trade unionists Corrêa complicates narratives that might assert a unidirectional flow of power from North to South. Despite AIFLD attempts to convince Brazilians of the superiority of the US model of collective bargaining, even some of the most conservative Brazilian trade unionists continued to assert the superiority of their own corporatist labor structure, particularly the labor courts.This final point emerges clearly over the course of the narrative, whose chapters unfold roughly across the administrations of four Brazilian presidents. Chapter 1 demonstrates how the AFL-CIO sought to promote a US trade union model as an antidote to the perceived communist sympathies of the labor movement during the turbulent years preceding the 1964 coup. Chapter 2 shows how US labor ideals were given their fullest expression under the pro-American government of Humberto Castelo Branco, the first military president. In chapter 3, we see how AIFLD began to clash with more nationalist currents in the Brazilian regime that questioned the assumption that a US model was directly applicable to Brazil. After a close analysis of Brazilian labor leaders' oft-critical reactions to the US labor model in chapter 4, chapter 5 shows how AFL-CIO influence in Brazil diminished in the 1970s, as the repression of the “years of lead” closed off opportunities for even capitalism-friendly, US-style labor mobilization.Despite the title, which indicates that Corrêa's book covers 1964–85, the narrative closes in 1974. This decision can be attributed to the fact that US influence over Brazilian unionism waned under more nationalist Brazilian governments. In addition, one set of sources vital to the book—the records of the US Department of State—had, as of the time of Corrêa's research, only been declassified until 1976. However, this means that the most obvious question—the relationship of North American “free and democratic unionism” to Brazil's “new unionism” that appeared in 1978—ultimately remains unanswered. How to explain the fact that Lula and a new generation of left-wing unionists advocated for direct collective bargaining and a weakening of corporatist labor relations—precisely the values AIFLD attempted to inculcate among Brazilian unionists? To what extent did the United States attempt to influence the new unionism led by Lula? These provocative questions will have to remain for future scholars.In addition, two issues may limit the book's impact on an Anglophone audience. First, while the original edition of the book is written in excellent academic Portuguese, the excessively literal translation results in awkward, clunky English that is not particularly readable. Second, the $97.99 price point may be prohibitive to all but the most dedicated specialists. This would be unfortunate because Anti-Communist Solidarity is a must-read not only for historians of Brazilian and Latin American labor history but also for those interested in US labor history, US–Latin American relations, and the strategies of modern-day empires to protect their interests.

Thomas C. Field Jr., Stella Krepp and Vanni Pettinà, eds. Latin America and the Global Cold War.

Latin America and the Global Cold War recovers the forgotten history of Latin America’s connections with the Global South, or Third World, during the Cold War. Whereas most histories of Latin America have traditionally looked at either single countries within the region or Latin American relations with the United States, this volume’s editors and contributors expand their scope to uncover the ways that Latin American citizens and governments interacted with counterparts in Asia, Africa, and the Soviet Union. In incorporating Latin America more fully into the burgeoning literature on the Global South and Third Worldism, the volume sheds new light on both the global Third World project and the Cold War in Latin America. Editors Thomas C. Field Jr., Stella Krepp, and Vanni Pettiná provide an introduction that orients the reader to the historiography on the Global South and the Third World movement or project, putting forth the argument that Latin American Cold War history is in fact Third World history. The volume’s contributors carry this argument through and flesh it out in fourteen excellent case studies split into two chronologically organized conceptual halves that explore the nationalist and internationalist aspects of Latin American Third World endeavors and encounters.

중남미 주요 4국 현지 신문의 한류 기사 동향과 의미

The purpose of this paper is to find out the substance and characteristic meaning of the ‘Hallyu’ in Latin America through analysis of local newspaper articles in major Latin American countries. The passionate local response to the ‘Hallyu’ is a topic frequently covered by the Korean media through foreign media. However, it was found that the ‘Hallyu’ in Latin America is somewhat over-packaged than reported by the Korean media. The ‘Hallyu’ in Latin American is being enjoyed by a small number of fandoms at the center of 'K-POP' and some categories of ‘Hallyu’. But it could not spread to consumer goods such as beauty, fashion, and tourism. However, through the COVID-19 pandemic, the ‘Hallyu’ can grow significantly due to the combination of Latin America's digital transformation business and the change of perception of “COREA.” Therefore, providing sophisticated local information and balanced analysis on the ‘Hallyu’ could be of practical help to Latin American relations policies.

Foreign Relations between Hungary and Latin America in the Early Years of the Cold War (1947–1959)

Abstract This article examines Hungarian foreign relations toward Latin America in the period between the end of World War ii and the victory of the Cuban Revolution and characterizes the problems raised by the general guidelines of Hungarian foreign policy toward the region. It seeks to answer the following questions: What political influences triggered Hungary’s turn toward Latin America? Is it possible to distinguish subperiods with independent characteristics within the analyzed period, and if so, what were the incentives of the subperiods? The article also analyzes the extent to which the fluctuations in Soviet–Latin American relations influenced the development of Hungarian trade and diplomatic relations, and how it reshaped Hungarian interest in the region.

Geopolitics and Geoeconomics in the China–Latin American Relations in the Context of the US–China Trade War and the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Bretton Woods institutions have failed to accommodate a rising China, and many authors describe this moment as a crisis of the liberal order, which China is intentionally contesting. The World Trade Organization was incapable of offering a solution to the trade war, and more recently, the World Health Organization was incapable of reducing – and rather partly contributed to – tensions between the US and China in the management of COVID-19 crisis. This Special Issue is made up of six manuscripts that address the most sensitive issues of the China–Latin American relationship amid the challenges of the growing dispute with the United States. The manuscripts assess the four main concerns that are shaping the agenda in China–Latin American relations in times of increasing geopolitical and geoeconomic competition between the United States and China: the Belt and Road Initiative, the One-China policy, the trade war, and the COVID-19 crisis.

Latin American Relations with the United States - The Third Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations since 1889. Second edition, revised. By Mark T. Gilderhus, David C. LaFevor, and Michael J. LaRosa. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. Pp. 303. $95.00 cloth; $ 39.95 paper.

Latin American Relations with the United States - The Third Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations since 1889. Second edition, revised. By Mark T. Gilderhus, David C. LaFevor, and Michael J. LaRosa. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. Pp. 303. 39.95 paper. - Volume 79 Issue 2

China's Belt and Road Initiative in Latin America: What has Changed?

When China invited the Latin American countries to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, it fuelled expectations of a much closer and more productive relationship with the region. In practice, however, there is little evidence that this was happening even before the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. The article shows that neither the policy statements by China nor the trends in economic relations indicate a substantive change in Sino–Latin American relations and that the Belt and Road Initiative represents a repackaging of existing relations and the continuation of trends that have been underway since the global financial crisis.

Revisiting the EU-Latin American Cooperation through Text-Mining Analysis: Major Trends, Issues, and Discourses

유럽연합(EU)과 라틴아메리카 및 카리브지역(LAC)은 1999년 전략적 동반자 관계를 체결한 이래 오늘날까지 제도화된 협력을 추진해오고 있다. EU와 LAC는 전략적 동반자관계 수립 이후 매 2년 혹은 3년마다 정상회담을 이어 오고 있으며, 2010년에는 전략적 동반자관계의 일환으로 EU-LAC Foundation을 설립하기로 결정하는 등 양 지역의 협력관계는 공고화되고 있다. 이처럼 EU와 LAC는 상생적인 공동번영과 다양한 지역·글로벌 이슈에 대응하기 위한 협력 기제를 성공적으로 구축해오고 있음에도 불구하고, EU의 대외관계에 대한 선행연구는 주요 국가(미국, 중국 등) 혹은 지역과의 협력에 주로 천착해 있으며, EU-라틴아메리카 관계에 대한 연구를 살펴보더라도 특정 협력 이슈에 초점을 맞춘 연구가 대부분이다. 본 연구는 이러한 선행연구와의 차별성을 기하기 위해, 전략적 동반자관계의 맥락에서 EU와 LAC 간의 관계를 고찰하고, 이를 둘러싼 주요 동향과 이슈 및 담론을 도출하는 것을 목적으로 하였다. 이를 위해 2012-2021년 사이 EU-LAC Foundation에서 발간된 229개의 문서를 텍스트마이닝 기법을 사용하여 분석하였다. 구체적으로 키워드분석, 의미연결망 분석 및 구조적 등위 분석을 실시하였으며, 이를 통해 EU와 LAC 협력 아젠다가 기존의 전통적인 정치·경제(통상 및 무역) 분야를 넘어서 문화, 사회 이슈, 교육 및 지속가능한 발전을 위시한 환경 이슈까지 확장되고 있음을 발견하였다.The European Union (EU) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have been pursuing institutionalized cooperation since the establishment of strategic bi-regional partnership in 1999. Subsequently, the EU and the LAC have held summits every two or three years. Cooperation between the two regions has been strengthening and further consolidated with the decision to create the EU–LAC Foundation as part of the strategic partnership in 2010. Although the EU and the LAC have successfully established a cooperative framework for co-prosperity and various regional and global issues, the existing literature on the EU’s external relations is mainly on its cooperation with major global players (such as the US and China), and most of the previous studies on EU–Latin American relations focus on specific cooperative issues. In this regard, the present study aimed to identify the relations between the EU and the LAC in the context of strategic partnerships and to derive the relevant key trends, issues, and discourses. The research analyzed 229 documents published by the EU–LAC Foundation between 2012 and 2021 employing the text-mining approach. Specifically, the study conducted keyword, semantic network, and CONCOR analyses. The results demonstrated that the EU and LAC’s cooperation agenda are expanding beyond the traditional political and economic fields to culture, social issues, education, and sustainable development, such as environmental issues.

Smugglers, Pirates, and Patriots: Free Trade in the Age of Revolution

In the early republic, a potent mix of commercial aspirations and ideological naivete characterized US diplomatic relations with South America. Tyson Reeder's book explores how North American visions of inevitable republicanism and free trade across the Western Hemisphere came to naught in Brazil. Surveying the give-and-take of state and merchant power emanating from North America, Brazil, Portugal, and Britain between 1760 and 1830, Reeder argues that experiences with international trade in the early republic disproved US revolutionary assumptions about the incompatibility of monarchy and commercial freedom.The monograph is divided into four parts. Part 1 establishes the context of trading and state relationships between the British and Portuguese empires in the eighteenth century's latter half. Portugal, Madeira, and Brazil bought North American grain, North Americans consumed Madeira wine, and Brazilian gold powered credit relationships with the British Atlantic and the slave trade from Angola. Unlike the British, who enforced illicit trading prohibitions in the North American colonies (a flash point for eventual revolutionary turmoil), the Portuguese never took a hard line on smuggling and mercantilism within their empire. Portuguese subjects in Brazil rarely perceived unlicensed trade as incompatible with fealty to the monarchy.Part 2 examines how the shifting political terrain of British imperial crisis and the American War of Independence altered trading priorities and commercial relationships. Independence from Britain meant that North Americans no longer enjoyed the trading privileges resulting from long-term British naval protection of the Portuguese. Portuguese bans on direct trade with the nascent United States deepened North American convictions that empires and monarchies could not be trusted trading partners.In part 3, Reeder explores how the hopes of US free traders for open trade with an independent Brazil aligned with neither that colony's late eighteenth-century fate nor US lawmakers' early nineteenth-century commercial policies. Early republic luminaries like Thomas Jefferson thought revolution, independence, and free trade inevitable for Brazil. Meanwhile, the Portuguese feared the US republican example in Brazilian uprisings like the 1789–90 Minas conspiracy. Nevertheless, the Portuguese court's movement to Brazil further liberalized Brazilian trade. As Reeder argues, the United States, not trade liberalization, was the problem for Portugal. Compounding the challenges for US merchants, the 1807 Embargo Act forbade the export of US products until foreign powers ceased interfering with US neutral trade. To North American merchants, this disastrous act “seemed to betray liberal ideologies to garner respect from European powers—a betrayal magnified as the Portuguese monarchy liberalized imperial commerce” (p. 134).Reeder examines the deeper dimensions of this disenchantment in part 4's discussion of the nineteenth century's first decades. Initially, North American observers prefigured rebels against Portuguese control in 1817 Pernambuco as latter-day versions of the 1776 patriots in Boston. North American seafarers accepted privateering commissions from José Gervasio Artigas, caudillo of the disputed Banda Oriental of present-day Uruguay and Brazil, to raid Portuguese and Spanish shipping in the pursuit of the region's independence. To maintain future trading opportunities and good standing in the community of nations, US politicians passed the 1817 Neutrality Act, which denied privateers safe harbor in US ports. Ultimately, Brazil's 1822 transition to an imperial monarchy engendered US prejudices about how Brazil's suspect racial composition made republicanism impossible and new conceptualizations of Brazil as a slaveholding paradise.Reeder offers a compelling investigation of trade mentalities and ideological projection. As Brazil delayed independence and then formed into an independent monarchy that liberalized trade, this unique course of decolonization “exposed the fragility of North Americans' commitment to hemispheric republicanism and its tepid attachment to free trade” (p. 237). Reeder's comparative commercial psychoanalysis illuminates deep connections between Brazil and the early United States that scholars have often overlooked. His research is deeply grounded in archival material from Brazil, Portugal, the United States, and Britain. At times, the book can be a bit repetitive and reductionist in its restatement of the paradoxical relationship between imperialism and free trade. Its single-minded focus on the Luso-Atlantic world also left me wondering about where else US beliefs in republican commercial liberalism were being put to the test. This lack of wider context notwithstanding, the book adds a wonderful case study to works such as Caitlin Fitz's Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions (2016), on the ideological aspirations of US political thought toward Spanish American independence movements, and Eliga Gould's Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire (2012), on the US struggle for legitimacy in the nineteenth-century community of nations. It will be an important book for historians of Atlantic commerce and early US–Latin American relations.

Ethnic competition in a divided America: The wall and the “Hispanic threat”

AbstractDuring his electoral campaign and while in office, President Donald Trump expressed his desire to build a wall along the US–Mexico border to control migration. Analyzing the conditions, circumstances, and demands of those Americans who want a wall with Mexico and Latin America is an imperative to understand better US–Latin American relations and ethnic competition not only during the Trump administration, but also in Joseph Biden's presidency. In this article, we argue, through quantitative analysis, that multiple factors, both individual and contextual, have a significant effect on the stance that US citizens have about immigration and the construction of the wall. Our study demonstrates that, in addition to sociodemographic variables, the distribution of the Hispanic population across the 50 US states generates a “Hispanic threat” which, as understood through ethnic competition theory, is a significant factor affecting Americans' views on the wall and immigration.

Outlook of the Chinese and Latin American relations

In recent years, with the increasing cultural and economic exchanges between China and Latin America, more and more Chinese friends have begun to get to know Latin America, travel to Latin America and engage in Latin American studies. In terms of economy and trade, adhering to the concept of "win-win cooperation" (Danzhi, 2019), we import and export products between Latin America and China. Many fruits and coffee products from Latin America and the Caribbean can be seen in Chinese market. We also hope to import more Latin American products and conduct exhibition and promotion in China in the future.

The value of security cooperation in Sino–South American relations

PurposeRelations between the People's Republic of China and Latin America have gradually expanded from commerce and finance to cover different aspects of security. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview over security cooperation between China and South America. Specifically, it analyses the motivations for security cooperation on both sides and its value added for Sino–South American relations.Design/methodology/approachThe article describes four dimensions of security cooperation between China and South America: functional cooperation, defence diplomacy, long-term cooperation initiatives and arms sales. For each dimension of security cooperation, the main motivations on the two sides are discussed, together with the value added of security cooperation to the “comprehensive and cooperative partnership” China's policy papers on Latin America and the Caribbean have called for.FindingsSecurity and defence considerations have not caused the development of Sino–South American security cooperation. Instead, it were the rapidly growing economic links from the 2000s on that facilitated China's broader political engagement with South America, including in the field of security. There are a number of important motivations that indicate security cooperation between China and South American states will further expand in the future.Practical implicationsSecurity cooperation should not only be practiced as an end in itself but also serve tangible outcomes to reduce insecurity.Originality/valueIn the context of Sino–Latin American relations, security cooperation has received relatively little attention beyond a comparatively small group of pundits despite the fact that military diplomacy has become increasingly important in bolstering China's growing international profile. This article makes an original contribution in discussing four dimensions of security cooperation between China and South America.

Exploring the nontraditional foreign investment in Sino–Latin American relations: The Chilean case

At the end of 2016, China and Chile increased their bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership increasingly involving the development of traditional and nontraditional foreign investments. The former is measured under the usual parameters of economic cooperation that includes horizontal and vertical investments. However, during the last decades, new forms of cooperation have emerged based on the creation of a HUB that responds to complex strategies in specific contexts, which implies the willingness of nations to establish sophisticated links in which both countries use their competitive resources in search of a common benefit. Although there is no absolute limit between traditional and nontraditional foreign direct investments, since they are not mutually exclusive, the latter have become fundamental elements in the establishment of Chinese multidimensional relations and are part of the new path of cooperation in the Latin America region. In this context, Chile is one of the countries that has hosted the largest number of hub platforms led by China in South America, which include the Southern Optical Fiber Project, the China-Chile Joint Astronomical Data Center, and the China-South America Transpacific cable. This article explores the dynamics of these initiatives through the case study of China–Chile relations.

Buenas Vecinas?

During World War II, US–Latin American relations were shaped by the noninterventionist Good Neighbor policy and the projection of soft power via US government-orchestrated public relations and propaganda campaigns. This included extensive film and radio propaganda overseen by the US Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) and disseminated throughout the region. One dimension of that campaign involved radio propaganda aimed specifically at women, who were regaled with stories of heroic Latin American women and carefully curated female perspectives on life in the United States during wartime. In much of this material, the United States was presented as a dominant yet gentlemanly hemispheric partner, offering Latin America protection and material abundance in exchange for loyalty and deference. As the war wound down, such propaganda took a sharp turn toward the Cold War, when Good Neighbor chivalry gave way to more strident rhetoric, prefiguring a return to US interventionist politics of the prewar era.

In Their Own Best Interest: A History of the U.S. Effort to Improve Latin Americans

Just when we thought we had read enough about U.S.–Latin American relations, along comes Lars Schoultz to show us that there is so much more to know. One of the leading scholars on the topic, Schoultz has contributed outstanding book-length studies, including Beneath the United States (1998) to the historiography. In Their Own Best Interest is yet another demonstration of his brilliant analytical skills. Schoultz turns the ethnologist's gaze to study the “native” point of view, and his natives are U.S. policy makers who, he claims, have tried for more than a century to “uplift” or improve their neighbors to the South—an attitude that Schoultz aptly labels “shouldering the Rich Man's Burden” (p. 7). Of course, he is correct in stating that Latin America historically has been a proving ground of U.S. altruism, always and inextricably paired with self-interest. The process of uplift has a long history, as Schoultz convincingly demonstrates. The ideas underlying the practice were discussed as early as in the middle of the nineteenth century, based on a perception of Latin American failure, which U.S. American policy makers had developed even earlier, after the American Revolution. For Schoultz, the real story begins in 1898 with Cuba serving as guinea pig. The period of dollar diplomacy followed, under a president who excelled in his lack of empathy, but the “wretched politicians” in the South still did not show an intent to accept the plans for improvement that their northern neighbors offered, more often than not at gunpoint (p. 69). This changed only gradually under Franklin D. Rooosevelt's Good Neighbor policy. For Schoultz the Great Depression and World War II were important watersheds in the project of Latin American improvement. The Cold War, then, gave the policy a new meaning because it became a central element in the fight against communism in the region. However, as the case of Cuba so obviously showed—to the surprise of many politicians in Washington—gratitude for U.S.-style altruism was not to be expected. By the end of the Cold War, the Latin American project had lost its appeal for uplifters, only to regain momentum with the post–Cold War concentration on the improvement of governance in the region—according to Schoultz a move backward to the Progressive Era.

Xi Jinping and The Sino - Latin American Relations in The 21st Century: Facing The Beginning of A New Phase?

Sino-Latin American relations experienced an extraordinary intensification throughout the first sixteen years of the 21st century. The present article analyses Sino-Latin American relations in the 21st century and proposes three major ideas. First, Sino-Latin American relations experienced an inflection point in 2001, which initiated an unprecedented process that intensified the relationship. Second, since the inflection point in 2001, the relationship established its foundations by transiting through an economic phase between 2001 and 2008, and a soft power phase between 2008 and 2013. Finally, since Xi Jinping took office in 2013, Sino-Latin American relations might be entering a comprehensive new phase that goes beyond trade and soft power, including the political and military-strategic dimensions. The article will be structured as follows: 1) it provides an overview of Sino-Latin American relations in the 21st century; 2) then it describes how the foundations of the relationship were established in its first two phases; 3) finally, this article provides a proposal of a new phase of Sino-Latin American relations since 2013.

The Unlikely Friends: Iranian–Latin American Relations and Washington’s Anxiety

Although Iran and the Latin American states appear to be unlikely allies when considering the vast distances and the religious, cultural and demographic differences between these regions, their shared experience of Washington’s hegemonistic designs have brought them closer. Washington’s failure to isolate Tehran has meant that the Islamic Republic, and Hezbollah, have prioritised relationship-building with states that are at the doorstep of the US. Although this has antagonised the US, Washington has only offered a weak reaction to the economic and geopolitical advances made by Iran. Why Tehran has targeted Latin America will be analysed and explored in the article.

Letter From the Editor

Letter From the Editor Christopher Gaffney 親愛的同事們, A few years ago I was wandering through the Saara region of Rio de Janeiro in the late afternoon and stopped to have an esfiha in a traditional Syrian eatery. The young girl behind the counter was clearly Han Chinese and spoke just enough Portuguese to facilitate our transaction. As I was happily munching away, I looked down a row of stores selling the myriad shimmering and feathery things necessary for Carnaval. The stores were closing and each metal curtain was pulled down by a young Chinese person. From the parking garages emerged a series of rather expensive cars driven by Chinese patresfamilias, the new dons of the Carnaval trade in Rio. This insignificant moment in Rio's vibrant commercial district got me thinking about the ways in which Latin America and China are interconnected beyond the production and consumption of consumer goods. The retreat of the United States fro the region has opened opportunities for Chinese investment in infrastructure, technology, and political interaction. A number of academic journals have produced special issues that explore the relationships between Latin America and China but none have taken the explicitly geographic perspective that we offer in this Special Issue on China and Latin American Relations. Our guest editors Julie Klinger and Tom Narins have worked closely with Associate Editor Jorn Seemann to bring together a wonderful array of stories, perspectives, and ideas that give us ample food for thought about this enduring and dynamic interchange. As part of our ongoing efforts to modernize and expand the reach of JLAG, we have included Chinese abstracts for the first time. We hope that this will allow the journal to reach new audiences and stimulate interchange between Latin American and Chinese geographers. Additionally, we continue to direct ever more resources to editing and production and continue to seek avenues for innovation and engagement with geographers throughout the Americas and beyond. It is fitting, therefore, that this is the first issue of JLAG that will be published under the aegis of the "new CLAG." The removal of the "ista" nomenclature from CLAG was an overdue recognition that the organization is not only a home for North American geographers who study Latin America, but rather a place of encounter and exchange between and for all Latin American Geographers regardless of origin or residence. As the Conference of Latin American Geography approaches its 50th year, the editorial team at JLAG would like to renew our call to all of our Latin American colleagues to contribute to the growth of the journal through which we can foster debate, promote change, and develop lasting relationships. 好利潤! [End Page 5] Christopher Gaffney Editor-in-Chief Copyright © 2018 Distributed by the University of Texas Press

The Long Itinerary to Normalization: The Cuban – Latin American Relations

After its Revolution Cuba was forced into a Latin American and Caribbean diplomatic quarantine by the United States. In the 1960s, Cuba’s relations with the region were basically characterized by its support to insurgency and guerrilla movements. In the 1970s, Cuba overcame its isolation by normalizing relations in Latin America and with the newly independent Caribbean island-states. Support to the Armed Left was only given in the case of civil war against dictatorships; Cuba also assisted in building national umbrella organizations of insurgent movements. After 1985-1989 it used its Soft Power (medical brigades and facilities, literacy and post-disaster reconstruction teams), and its goods offices during peace negotiations to become a much-respected country in the region. During the government of Raúl Castro economic and political reforms were initiated while a rapport with the Catholic episcopate was established. It contributed in facilitating with success the decades-long negotiations with the United States about normalizing relations. A substantial part of this article is based on new and recent interviews with numerous Cuban key actors.