{"id":1667193,"date":"2026-03-02T23:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T04:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1667193"},"modified":"2026-03-02T23:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T04:25:00","slug":"mapping-chinas-influence-in-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/mapping-chinas-influence-in-latin-america\/1667193\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping China’s Influence in Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mapping China’s Influence in Latin America<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

The ouster of Peru\u2019s president began with a secret late-night dinner.<\/strong> A series of clandestine encounters followed\u2014dark glasses at one meeting, a hood over his face at another.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Then videos leaked. Amid a nationwide uproar, three-quarters of Peru\u2019s lawmakers voted to censure the initially popular Jos\u00e9 Jer\u00ed, just four months into his presidency. He was the country\u2019s seventh leader in 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask to end this agony so we can truly create the transition citizens are hoping for,\u201d said Ruth Luque, one of 75 lawmakers who voted<\/a> to oust Jer\u00ed. \u201cNot a transition with hidden interests, influence-peddling, secret meetings, and hooded figures. We don\u2019t want that sort of transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man meeting with Jer\u00ed was Chinese restaurant and wholesale store owner Yang Zhihua<\/strong>, who is behind several major Chinese infrastructure deals in the country.<\/p>\n

Dubbed <\/strong>\u201cChifagate<\/strong>,\u201d a nod to fusion Peruvian\u2060-\u2060Chinese cuisine, the scandal has thrown another wrinkle into an already strained relationship between the two countries.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Currently, Lima is fighting to regain oversight over a major China-controlled port at Chancay, which has become a symbol of China\u2019s footprint in Latin America.<\/p>\n

Across the region, a deeply entrenched web of Chinese influence is enabling the communist regime to redefine dynamics in America\u2019s backyard.<\/p>\n

Starting with near-negligible investment levels in 2000, China has become a dominant force in Latin America and the Caribbean, with trade exceeding $500 billion in 2024. For many individual nations, such as Brazil and Peru, China has overtaken the United States as a key trading partner.<\/p>\n

View of the Chancay \u201cmegaport\u201d in the small town of Chancay, 48 miles north of the Peruvian capital, Lima, on Oct. 29, 2024. Port of Chancay is controlled by a Chinese state-owned company. Cris Bouroncle\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Along the way, Beijing has built enormous leverage, said Ding Hung-bin, associate dean at Loyola University Maryland\u2019s Sellinger School of Business and Management.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese Communist Party is playing the long game in Latin America,\u201d he told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n

With the money pouring in, Ding said, Beijing reaps political influence, biding its time to challenge the U.S.-led world order. After two decades, he said, \u201cthe fire has reached the U.S. doorstep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington is now making clear that this can\u2019t continue. In its national security strategy released in November, the Trump administration made the region its top priority, describing a \u201cgreat American strategic mistake of recent decades\u201d in allowing \u201cnon-Hemispheric competitors\u201d to take hold in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

The past inaction, the document reads, has cost the United States both \u201ceconomically in the present\u201d and \u201cstrategically in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within weeks of the strategy being released, U.S. forces captured<\/a> Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and brought that country\u2019s courtship with China to a halt.<\/p>\n

Just hours before his capture, Maduro hosted a Chinese envoy at the presidential palace. He accepted a porcelain vase and posed for photos with the Chinese delegates, then proclaimed on social media that the meeting reaffirmed the two countries\u2019 \u201cstrong bonds of brotherhood\u201d through \u201cthick and thin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores (rear), are escorted by federal agents after landing at a Manhattan helipad, as they make their way into an armored car en route to a federal courthouse in New York City on Jan. 5, 2026. XNY\/Star Max\/GC Images<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Digital Silk Road<\/h2>\n

The \u201cbrotherhood\u201d is Beijing\u2019s lever.<\/p>\n

In September, Maduro proudly showed off a foldable red-colored Huawei phone that he used daily\u2014a gift from Chinese leader Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

Maduro hailed it as the \u201cbest phone in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans can\u2019t hack it,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

To China, it was a validating moment in the regime\u2019s battle for technological supremacy, with Huawei leading the way.<\/p>\n

Blacklisted in the United States, the Chinese telecom provider has been deepening its foothold in other parts of the Americas. It spearheads the Digital Silk Road, a core element of Beijing\u2019s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative aimed at stretching the regime\u2019s power and influence around the globe.<\/p>\n

Huawei\u2019s data storage platform now covers every Latin American country, boasting the fastest business growth among telecoms. The significance of that sank in when Brazil sought to block Huawei from its 5G networks on national security grounds in 2020. Huawei\u2019s technology was already embedded in the country\u2019s telecom architecture; replacing it would have cost billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

People visit Huawei’s stand during the Mobile World Congress at the Shanghai New International Expo Center in Shanghai on June 18, 2025. Hector Retamal\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

In 2022, Huawei signed a deal to turn Curitiba in southern Brazil into a 5G-powered smart city, integrating artificial intelligence and big data into urban life, from medical surgeries to public security. Its website now features an interview with the city\u2019s mayor, who touted Curitiba as a \u201csmart city that works for its citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Huawei isn\u2019t the only Chinese entity expanding in the region. Market research data from Canalys show that Chinese phone brands now command more than 60 percent of the Latin American market.<\/p>\n

In Ecuador, the China-made ECU911 system powers up surveillance cameras nationwide that feed real-time footage to a thousands-strong police unit, which deals with everything from traffic to national security. Touting its scale of impact, Xi once called it a \u201ccalling card for China\u2013Latin America\u2019s high tech collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

By law, Chinese companies have no choice but to hand over whatever they have if the Chinese Communist Party asks. And that makes their ubiquitousness problematic, said Evan Ellis, Latin American studies research professor at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.<\/p>\n

With all the data coming out of corporate boardrooms, factory floors, and people\u2019s homes, the key question is where they get offloaded, he told The Epoch Times. Chinese technologies\u2019 presence in federal agencies across the region, he said, \u201copens up government officials to blackmail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Predatory\u2019 Investments<\/h2>\n

Beijing has a phrase for its vision: the \u201cChina\u2013Latin America community with a shared future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Xi was the first to evoke the term. Addressing Brazil\u2019s National Congress in 2014, he compared the China\u2013Latin America relationship with wine\u2014something that \u201cgrows better as it ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea here is to \u201crebuild from the roots, pulling the 33 Latin America and Caribbean nations together with China while keeping America out,\u201d Florencia Huang, a professor specializing in Latin American studies at Taiwan\u2019s Tamkang University, told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n

Under that banner, China attracted more than 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries to join the Belt and Road partnerships. Hundreds of infrastructure projects followed.<\/p>\n

Chancay Port, a $1.3 billion project nearly 50 miles from Lima, is at the top of that list. The deepwater port, covering about 445 acres of Peruvian territory, is the primary Chinese logistics hub on the Pacific side of Latin America. Its strategic positioning directly links South America to China, cutting shipping time by nearly half while facilitating Beijing\u2019s access to minerals critical to its industrial demand.<\/p>\n

Chinese shipping giant COSCO has 30 years of exclusive operating rights to the port. The Peruvian port authority blamed this on an \u201cadministrative error\u201d in 2024. But its bid to void the terms quickly fizzled out; the country\u2019s congress approved changes that legalized the COSCO deal.<\/p>\n

In a further win for COSCO, a Peruvian court on Jan. 29 restricted state oversight of the terminal\u2019s operations. The United States warned that Peru could lose sovereignty of \u201ccritical infrastructure in its own territory\u201d to \u201cpredatory Chinese owners.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet this be a cautionary tale for the region and the world: cheap Chinese money costs sovereignty,\u201d the State Department\u2019s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs wrote in a February statement.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cPredatory\u201d is also what Ellis calls development projects such as Chancay, one of around 40 ports with Chinese investment in Latin America. Similar Chinese dominance repeats in sectors such as critical mineral extraction, logistics, and renewable energy.<\/p>\n

A common pattern here, according to Ellis, is to first secure market access in strategic sectors, then control the supply chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want access to the cheapest, fastest route, you need to cooperate with the Chinese,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cIt gives them leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then little by little, he said, they can push other shipping alliances out of business and capture the most important trans-Pacific routes for themselves.<\/p>\n

As a state-owned enterprise, COSCO has worked closely with the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA), providing logistical support in both Lebanon and Yemen in the 2010s.<\/p>\n

In the event of a military crisis\u2014say a conflict with the United States in the Indo-Pacific\u2014COSCO\u2019s officials would \u201cuse their exclusive control over that port in any way they could to resupply PLA warships,\u201d said Ellis.<\/p>\n

The Epoch Times has contacted COSCO for comment.<\/p>\n

Container ship Cosco Development, registered and sailing under the flag of Hong Kong, with capacity for more than 13,000 containers, is seen at the Agua Clara locks in Colon, 56 miles from Panama City, Panama, on May 2, 2017. Rodrigo Arangua\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A Broad Fishing Net<\/h2>\n

In the heart of Argentina\u2019s Patagonian desert, behind an eight-foot barbed-wire fence, a Chinese entity subordinate to the PLA\u2019s strategic support force runs a seclusive space station. Access to outsiders is by appointment only.<\/p>\n

Within roughly 100 miles south of the Florida shore, four strategically located Cuban sites alleged to have ties with China hold antennas and other gear that can collect intelligence on the United States, according to satellite imagery analysis. Of them, at least one underwent new upgrades in 2025 that could significantly enhance its surveillance capabilities, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.<\/p>\n

Covert intelligence gathering and dual-use facilities are far from the sole avenues for China in building an edge. More prominent\u2014and apparently successful\u2014are the regime\u2019s broad overtures to foster ties on a personal level.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s senior military leaders have visited the region hundreds of times in the past two decades, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Concurrent with these activities were a stream of military exchanges, joint drills, and arms sales.<\/p>\n

Illustration by The Epoch Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Beijing also heaped on incentives, offering Latin American military officers free training, business-class travel, and five-star hotel stays in China, the RAND think tank wrote in a 2022 Pentagon-sponsored research.<\/p>\n

Through a state-directed program called \u201cBridge of the Future,\u201d Beijing brought more than 1,000 Latin political dignitaries and \u201cyoung leaders\u201d on China trips, Chinese government records show.<\/p>\n

Wang Yi, Chinese foreign minister, said in May 2025 that Beijing intended to invite 300 Latin American delegates in each of the following three years.<\/p>\n

And such efforts have paid off.<\/p>\n

A Honduran congressional staffer, during a 2023 trip to a Party \u201cred tourism\u201d village, gushed to Chinese state media about China\u2019s poverty alleviation campaign, saying the regime had created a \u201cmiracle in human history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other testimonials from Latin American officials abound, with an Argentinian colonel praising the Belt and Road Initiative and a major general crediting the regime\u2019s COVID-19 control measures with \u201cbuying the West time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a clue as to how much the regime values these programs, look no further than the Chinese white paper that dovetailed the U.S. National Security Strategy. Reading the document, Ellis said it amazed him \u201chow many different programs there are for people at all levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese cast their fishing nets very broadly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read the rest\u00a0here…<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nMon, 03\/02\/2026 – 18:25<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/mapping-chinas-influence-latin-america<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mapping China’s Influence in Latin America Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The ouster of Peru\u2019s president began with a secret…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1667194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1667193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-6ZId","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/752512bd-1815-4810-b609-0c780041800b_0f817a06_80-Wl5WJh.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1667215,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667193\/revisions\/1667215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1667194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1667193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1667193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}