The axis of oil: China and Venezuela, Ben Schiller

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The Chinese are coming. In no part of the world is this more evident than Latin America, where a series of trade agreements, infrastructural investments and bilateral visits over the past two years has begun to reshape the economic landscape. But economics is also politics. China seeks to present its new relationship with Latin America as part of its much-vaunted "peaceful rise", but how is it seen in Latin America itself – and in the United States?

The more radical of Latin America's new generation of leftwing leaders have few doubts. Hugo Chávez was in typically ebullient mood as he visited Beijing in December 2004. After signing a series of bilateral agreements (Venezuela's president has put his pen to at least twenty-five with China since coming to office in 1998) he speculated that Chairman Mao and Simón Bolívar, the Latin American revolutionary, would have been "great friends" if they'd ever had a chance to meet. He said both countries had "been victims of international aggressions, of a storm made in America". But each had managed to surprise the United States by "standing up on its own feet" and "building its own paths".

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The axis of oil: China and Venezuela, Ben Schiller