China in Latin America: From the commodities consensus to the Beijing Consensus

Abstract

Over the last ten years, global production changes and China’s internal transformations have consolidated the great technological, manufacturing, financial, and military power that it acquired at the beginning of the twenty-first century. At the same time, they have reinforced its capacity for duress and coercion of other countries in the global periphery. This article discusses China’s rise to the status of global power and the implications for Latin America. It emphasizes the investment flows into Latin America from China, as well as their political and economic relationship. Then, it postulates that this relationship is reproducing a peripheral and dependent form of integration that has long characterized Latin America. Finally, we characterize the situation in Latin America as a transition from the former Washington Consensus to what we call the commodities consensus and the Beijing Consensus.