Abstract
This chapter examines similarities and differences in the relationships between China and Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It focuses on political, diplomatic, trade, investment, and migratory matters. In this interaction framework between both sides, China plays an important role in the economic modernization of the three countries. According to the author, in comparison with the economic relations of China with Brazil and Chile in the same period, the statistical data confirm a trade relationship between the three countries and China that reflect a “lost decade”, particularly in Argentina. The chapter concludes by providing a general and comparative vision of similarities and differences in the relations between China and the three countries. The analysis reaffirms the fact that China has grown its presence in the three countries and that power asymmetry has increased in all areas, increasingly as a result of Chinese modernization.
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Notes
- 1.
Catholics have greater presence in Argentina (92 percent) and Paraguay (89 percent) than in Uruguay (52 percent). The number of Catholic devotees declined in the last decade and the number of the non-Catholic Christians and other religious practices increased. However, the enthronement of a Latin American pope on March 2013 strengthened the Catholic Church in the region.
- 2.
The number of people who in the 2010 Argentine census considered themselves as indigenous or descendants of them were 955,322 persons, constituting around 2.38 percent of the total population of this country. According to the General Directorate of Statistics of Paraguay and III National Census of Population and Housing for Indigenous Peoples (2013), the indigenous population in 2012 was 112,848 inhabitants, representing 1.69 percent of the total population, officially estimated at 6,672,631 inhabitants. According to the 2011 Uruguayan Census, the total population is 3,251,654 inhabitants, of which 159,319 are of indigenous descent and 15,412 of Asian ancestry.
- 3.
This chapter follows the Huntington criterion of at least two consecutive political alternation needed to consolidate a democratic system (Huntington, 1994: 239).
- 4.
It is necessary to clarify the difference between North–South relations and the center-periphery scheme. While the first indicates the positions of states in the international system in terms of power, particularly in the economic field (China in the developed North; Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay in the undeveloped South), the second refers to the composition of trade exchanges between different economic structures. As a central country, China exports manufactures to these three countries. As peripheral economies, the three countries export raw materials or primary goods to China.
- 5.
In Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru have trade and cultural offices in Taiwan.
- 6.
The Gambia case clearly illustrates the understanding between Beijing and Taipei. On November 14, 2013, the Government of the Republic of the Gambia ceased diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Four days later, the Taiwanese authorities interrupted diplomatic relations. However, the PRC government did not establish diplomatic relations with the Gambia until March 2016, after Tsai Ing-wen assumed as President of Taiwan.
- 7.
On November 19, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang did not deny a journalist’s statement that a Chinese researcher had said that since 2008 mainland China refused to establish diplomatic relations with five countries (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of People’s Republic of China, 2013).
- 8.
The author considers the term Malvinas Islands, widely used in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, as the name of the archipelago located in the south Argentine Sea and the subject of sovereignty controversy between Argentina and the United Kingdom.
- 9.
Strategic partnership is a term that appears in international documents signed by Chinese diplomats. This internal classification stratified the states through different levels of association based on the Chinese national interest, delineating Chinese external orientation. Up to February 2017, the Baidu Encyclopedia classified them as follows: comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination (Russia); all-weather strategic cooperative partnership (Pakistan); comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership (Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique, and Congo Brazzaville); comprehensive strategic partnership (United Kingdom, Italy, Peru, Malaysia, Spain, Denmark, South Africa, Portugal, Indonesia, Mexico, Mongolia, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, France, Algeria, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Serbia, Poland, Uzbekistan, Chile, Ecuador); all-dimensional strategic partnership (Germany); strategic cooperative partnership (South Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan); strategic partnership (Turkmenistan, Nigeria, Canada, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ireland, Ukraine, Angola, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Costa Rica, Jordan, Sudan, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Uruguay); all-round cooperative partnership (Belgium, Singapore); comprehensive cooperative partnership (Croatia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Romania, Netherlands, East Timor, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Maldives, Bulgaria, and Kenya); friendly and cooperative partnership (Hungary, Senegal); friendly partnership (Jamaica); important cooperative partnership (Fiji); new cooperative partnership (Finland); innovative strategic partnership (Switzerland).
- 10.
The purpose of the Framework Agreement for Cooperation in Security Matter (2016) is “taking the most effective action against transnational organized crimes”, among which are mentioned economic crimes, money laundering, and related crimes.
- 11.
In 2016, the Ministry of Public Security approved a total of 1576 foreigners living in China, an increase of 163 percent over the previous year. According to public information, from 2004 to 2013, the total number of Chinese green cards issued was 7356, while foreigners living in China are about 700,000 people (Zheng, 2017).
- 12.
The overseas Chinese, called huaqiao (华侨) in Chinese, are Chinese citizens living outside Chinese territory, while ethnic Chinese, called huaren (华人) in Chinese, are citizens with non-Chinese nationality but of Chinese origin. In the latter case, the Chinese embassies abroad lacks jurisdiction to exercise diplomatic protection.
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Oviedo, E.D. (2020). China and Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay: Similarities and Differences. In: Bernal-Meza, R., Xing, L. (eds) China–Latin America Relations in the 21st Century. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35614-9_8
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