Struggle for modernization and Sino-Latin American economic relations

OVIEDO, EDUARDO DANIEL

The Rise of China and The Impact on Semi-periphery and Periphery Countries

Aalborg-Denmark: Aalborg University Press

Lugar: Aalborg; Año: 2012; p. 103 - 131

The following study stratifies the global economy according to Pareto´s principle and confirms the trend toward global economic de-concentration in the first decade of the twenty-first century. This de-concentration is related to the rise of Asian countries in the world economic structure, which, based on modernization processes, show that it is possible to ascend and occupy positions in the global Directory of major economic powers. Nowadays, the main examples of this process are China, Japan, India and also Russia. At the same time, the access of these nations into the Directory generates a counter-trend which tends to the re-concentration of economic powers. Therefore, de-concentration and re-concentration combine the contradictory economic forces of nations in the early twenty-first century, bearing in mind that the ?Pareto optimal? has not yet been reached and there is a margin to expand The access of China into the global Directory is a special case in this group of nations. In fact, the characteristic of authoritarian modernization, based on a one-party political system, caused a real disturbance in Latin American political systems and exposed the failure of Latin American leaders in promoting modernization in the region, with the one exception of Brazil. Hence, this research has focused on the internal and external factors that propelled China?s modernization and that may be important to Latin America, a region that is characterized by non-consolidated democracies which have formed, in almost all of its countries, an anti-authoritarian consciousness opposed to the Chinese political system.  The research also pays attention to Chinese interests which enter into harmony or tension with Latin American interests and create a Chinese-Latin American network of common and contradictory interests. This network is based on tangible and intangible capacities of power, which determine the status of each political unit in the international structure and build ?power relations?. As a result, it confirms the ?North-North model? for Sino-Brazilian interaction and the ?North-South model? for China linking with the rest of Latin American countries. Within this framework the dilemma of non-renewable resources appears; renewable resource complementation, the turning point of Chinese investment in the region; competition in third and local markets, where dumping and the recognition of China as a market economy face anti-dumping barriers. These factors, combined with the political will of the governments, show that there are political units satisfied with their primary economies and also with the new international division of labor. In contrast, there are also some units who aspire to reach economic de-primarization, promote industrialization and add value to their products. In the first case, cooperation exceeds tension; in the second case, tension will appear alongside cooperation. However, because of the incipient stage of industrialization in Latin America, harmony and tension over interests will co-exist in the short and medium term.