By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-07/Latin-America-and-Africa-hail-BRI-powered-Chinese-economic-growth--Me1QbCBVcs/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/09/WS5dedaae5a310cf3e3557cc4d.html
Publics across the world largely deliberate that China’s rise as a global economic superpower was an emboldening sign for the countries. Worldwide emerging markets, in particular, profoundly welcomed China’s economic growth and upheld an overwhelming positive view of Chinese economic stature, a latest Pew Research survey found.
Although few nations were wary of their governments’ growing economic reliance on China but they were equally fretful of US piercing influence in their domestic economies. Comparing their bilateral relations with the two biggest world economies, people mostly perceived China’s role more instrumental than the US.
The countries in Latin America – Brazil, Mexico and Argentina – vividly hailed China thriving economy, stepping aside their strong trade ties with the United States. That was somewhat unusual provided that the three sides had a bilateral trade of $61 billion, $518 billion and $11 billion respectively with America as compared to their total trade of about $260 billion with China in the first ten months of 2019.
Even though Mexico had a trade surplus of nearly $85 billion with the US for January to October, 50% of the United Mexican States’ poll participants did not dither to back Beijing’s economic growth as favorable against mere 22% who thought otherwise.
It was mainly for the reason that the US President Donald Trump recurrently ditched the American neighboring country on trade and immigration and therefore the public sentiments went against the US aggressive policies and pushed their support to radically tilt towards kindlier China.
A significant majority of Argentinians (and Brazilians also believed that Chinas’ economic and investment advancement was a good thing for them, even when measured with their opinions about the US.
The proclivity to disapprove US growth is likely to soar after Trump grilled the two countries over “massive currency devaluation” and afterwards he threatened to reimpose tariffs on their steel and aluminum exports to the US. The people from Argentina and Brazil could turn rickety about US scratchy economic policies and could shift their bigger empathies in the direction of China. Interestingly, neither Argentina nor Brazil was on the watchlist of the US Treasury Department for “unfair currency practices.”
Apparently, the US president rationalized exchange rate maneuvering to bash Argentina and Brazil regimes” however the real intent behind the loudmouthed move was the two countries’ growing reconciliation with China that enabled Brasilia and Buenos Aires to become largest soybean exporter and strike a soymeal deal with Beijing correspondingly.
Lately, the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pragmatic and softer approach towards China greatly helped Brazil to embrace stronger economic relations with the largest Brazilian trade partner. At the recently concluded China International Import Expo (CIIE), the transaction volume of Brazilian businesses grew 3.6 times as compared to last year’s CIIE.
Bolsonaro’s pursuance of coherent and friendly strategy additionally raised its meat exports to Beijing and armor-plated China to become third-largest foreign investor in Brazil for the third quarter of 2019 with total investments of $874 million behind Japan ($1 billion) and the US ($915 million).
China and Latin America are steadily narrowing the elongated geographical distance to forge a closer economic and strategic partnership. In 2018, the bilateral trade between the two increased by 18.9% to 307.4 billion, one of the reasons why China has gained more confidence of the people in Latin America in recent years.
Latin America is the natural extension of the BRI. Through establishing an open platform of collaboration, Argentina can integrate its development strategy with BRI while the project is high compatible with Panama’s National Logistics Strategy as well. So, the Chinese-offered wider cooperation in the areas of agriculture, energy, infrastructure, mining and manufacturing could bring prosperity to a region that is expected to marginally grow by just 0.7% in Q4-2019.
The emerging markets of Africa – Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa – have been quickly cozying up to China too and the increasing numbers of the countries citizens’ positive views about Beijing strongly ratified their governments’ economic and infrastructure collaboration with China.
China has earned the trust of world’s second largest and second most-populace continent in the world by wielding deep efforts and pouring hundreds of billions of investments in its BRI projects in Africa to lift the poor regional economies and eradicate poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is the home of more than half or 413 million of the global poor head-count.
Beijing has initiated $227 billion of projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and another $240 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of Chinese projects were in Sub-Saharan Africa were directed towards air construction and marine and water projects
As Beijing has diverted most of its financial resources for airport construction and marine and water projects (mostly port facilities) in Sub-Saharan Africa, BRI is poised to add thrust to the African trade, stimulate economy and alleviate poverty drastically. That is why African people’s responsiveness to China is expanding at a rapid clip.
A prior World Bank report noted that besides increasing foreign investments and reducing poverty, BRI projects has the potential to enhance the global trade between 1.7% and 6.2% and the global income by 0.7% to 2.9%. Being a keystone of BRI, African nations can greatly benefit from the lavish Chinese spending and utilize the developed linkages to attract further foreign investments and boost trade with all countries.
It is not just Latin America and Africa; the publics of emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and Middle East too do not feel any threat from China economic growth and alongside colossal recognition from Russia and Ukraine, the people across the Europe are gradually realizing that the Chinese progress is vital for their economies.
And indeed, the marvels of China’s insignia BRI such as infrastructure and social development, shared growth and people-to-people exchanges are truly transforming a renewed and more intelligent global community that comprehends the importance of win-win cooperation and multilateralism in all spheres, from trade to development.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-07/Latin-America-and-Africa-hail-BRI-powered-Chinese-economic-growth--Me1QbCBVcs/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/09/WS5dedaae5a310cf3e3557cc4d.html
Publics across the world largely deliberate that China’s rise as a global economic superpower was an emboldening sign for the countries. Worldwide emerging markets, in particular, profoundly welcomed China’s economic growth and upheld an overwhelming positive view of Chinese economic stature, a latest Pew Research survey found.
Although few nations were wary of their governments’ growing economic reliance on China but they were equally fretful of US piercing influence in their domestic economies. Comparing their bilateral relations with the two biggest world economies, people mostly perceived China’s role more instrumental than the US.
The countries in Latin America – Brazil, Mexico and Argentina – vividly hailed China thriving economy, stepping aside their strong trade ties with the United States. That was somewhat unusual provided that the three sides had a bilateral trade of $61 billion, $518 billion and $11 billion respectively with America as compared to their total trade of about $260 billion with China in the first ten months of 2019.
Even though Mexico had a trade surplus of nearly $85 billion with the US for January to October, 50% of the United Mexican States’ poll participants did not dither to back Beijing’s economic growth as favorable against mere 22% who thought otherwise.
It was mainly for the reason that the US President Donald Trump recurrently ditched the American neighboring country on trade and immigration and therefore the public sentiments went against the US aggressive policies and pushed their support to radically tilt towards kindlier China.
A significant majority of Argentinians (and Brazilians also believed that Chinas’ economic and investment advancement was a good thing for them, even when measured with their opinions about the US.
The proclivity to disapprove US growth is likely to soar after Trump grilled the two countries over “massive currency devaluation” and afterwards he threatened to reimpose tariffs on their steel and aluminum exports to the US. The people from Argentina and Brazil could turn rickety about US scratchy economic policies and could shift their bigger empathies in the direction of China. Interestingly, neither Argentina nor Brazil was on the watchlist of the US Treasury Department for “unfair currency practices.”
Apparently, the US president rationalized exchange rate maneuvering to bash Argentina and Brazil regimes” however the real intent behind the loudmouthed move was the two countries’ growing reconciliation with China that enabled Brasilia and Buenos Aires to become largest soybean exporter and strike a soymeal deal with Beijing correspondingly.
Lately, the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pragmatic and softer approach towards China greatly helped Brazil to embrace stronger economic relations with the largest Brazilian trade partner. At the recently concluded China International Import Expo (CIIE), the transaction volume of Brazilian businesses grew 3.6 times as compared to last year’s CIIE.
Bolsonaro’s pursuance of coherent and friendly strategy additionally raised its meat exports to Beijing and armor-plated China to become third-largest foreign investor in Brazil for the third quarter of 2019 with total investments of $874 million behind Japan ($1 billion) and the US ($915 million).
China and Latin America are steadily narrowing the elongated geographical distance to forge a closer economic and strategic partnership. In 2018, the bilateral trade between the two increased by 18.9% to 307.4 billion, one of the reasons why China has gained more confidence of the people in Latin America in recent years.
Latin America is the natural extension of the BRI. Through establishing an open platform of collaboration, Argentina can integrate its development strategy with BRI while the project is high compatible with Panama’s National Logistics Strategy as well. So, the Chinese-offered wider cooperation in the areas of agriculture, energy, infrastructure, mining and manufacturing could bring prosperity to a region that is expected to marginally grow by just 0.7% in Q4-2019.
The emerging markets of Africa – Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa – have been quickly cozying up to China too and the increasing numbers of the countries citizens’ positive views about Beijing strongly ratified their governments’ economic and infrastructure collaboration with China.
China has earned the trust of world’s second largest and second most-populace continent in the world by wielding deep efforts and pouring hundreds of billions of investments in its BRI projects in Africa to lift the poor regional economies and eradicate poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is the home of more than half or 413 million of the global poor head-count.
Beijing has initiated $227 billion of projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and another $240 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of Chinese projects were in Sub-Saharan Africa were directed towards air construction and marine and water projects
As Beijing has diverted most of its financial resources for airport construction and marine and water projects (mostly port facilities) in Sub-Saharan Africa, BRI is poised to add thrust to the African trade, stimulate economy and alleviate poverty drastically. That is why African people’s responsiveness to China is expanding at a rapid clip.
A prior World Bank report noted that besides increasing foreign investments and reducing poverty, BRI projects has the potential to enhance the global trade between 1.7% and 6.2% and the global income by 0.7% to 2.9%. Being a keystone of BRI, African nations can greatly benefit from the lavish Chinese spending and utilize the developed linkages to attract further foreign investments and boost trade with all countries.
It is not just Latin America and Africa; the publics of emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and Middle East too do not feel any threat from China economic growth and alongside colossal recognition from Russia and Ukraine, the people across the Europe are gradually realizing that the Chinese progress is vital for their economies.
And indeed, the marvels of China’s insignia BRI such as infrastructure and social development, shared growth and people-to-people exchanges are truly transforming a renewed and more intelligent global community that comprehends the importance of win-win cooperation and multilateralism in all spheres, from trade to development.