Determining Factors of Chinese Perception in Latin America

GUSTAVO SANTILLÁN

Santiago de Chile

Congreso; III Foro Académico de Alto Nivel China-América Latina; 2014

Universidad Andrés Bello

The perception of China in Latin America is an important dimension to be considered in the relationship between both parts, drastically affecting its future development. This phenomenon has a multidimensional character. Our work aims to introduce some of the dimensions pertaining to the perception of China in Latin America, as a contribution to further debate. In our judgement, the dimensions affecting the perception of China in Latin America are: 1) The economic changes in the global scenario, and the changes in the international balance of power. These changes are in turn determined so much by the American decline as by the Chinese rise. 2) A current multi-fold uncertainty on the future evolution of the international system, involving a) an epistemological dimension, b) The way in which China constructs her role as a rising power, and c) Latin American perceptions, both about its own region (that is, the Latin-American perception about itself and about the socio-political models prevailing within each country or country-group), and about the rise of China. The second section of this work, on the basis of the exam of the above stated dimensions, and starting from our position as Southern Cone scholars, proposes some relevant suggestions for a better understanding of China in Latin America. Our third section concludes the paper, emphasizing that a better understanding of China in Latin America is a desirable goal, so much for both parts as for the international order currently in construction.