Chinese state media announced on Wednesday that Colombia has signed a “joint cooperation plan” that will bring it into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s gigantic worldwide infrastructure plan.
BRI is often criticized as a “debt trap” because it encourages client nations to take out big loans from Chinese banks that can never be repaid, since BRI projects tend to be much less profitable than promised.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said during a visit to China on Monday that his country would join the “Silk Road,” the original name given to BRI to evoke the ancient trade route that ran from China through the Middle East and into Europe. Latin America was not in any way linked to the Ancient Silk Road.
“We’ve decided to take a strong step forward regarding relations between China and Latin America,” Petro said.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping reportedly promised Petro that China would “import more high-quality products from Colombia, back its firms in investing and doing business there and join in infrastructure construction” as part of the BRI deal.
“Two-thirds of Latin American countries have already signed up to the infrastructure initiative, which aims to give Beijing global political and economic clout in exchange for Chinese investment in infrastructure and other large-scale projects,” Deutsche Welle (DW) noted on Wednesday.
Petro, and many other Latin American leaders, were in China to attend the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum. China has been using such events to expand its influence in Latin America at the expense of the United States.
Adding Columbia to its roster of client states will be a significant accomplishment for Beijing, balancing out the loss of Panama, which dropped out of BRI in February at the urging of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Panama was the first Latin American country to join BRI in 2018.
At the China-CELAC forum, Xi painted China as the new guardian of the multilateral world order, while sneering at the “bullying and hegemony” of the United States under President Donald Trump.
“There are no winners in tariff wars or trade wars. Only through unity and cooperation can countries safeguard global peace and stability and promote worldwide development and prosperity,” Xi said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the CELAC attendees to “join hands” with China against Trump, who he accused of “using tariffs as a weapon to bully other countries.”
Xi offered to extend a $9.2 billion line of credit to Latin American and Caribbean nations at the forum — but only if they were willing to take the money in Chinese yuan, rather than U.S. dollars. He also promised to implement visa-free travel from five Latin American nations and eventually add more, although he did not name the first five.
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