Chinese influence in Brazil worries US
By Humphrey Hawksley
BBC Newsnight, Sao Paulo
While the United States has been fighting its war on terror, a new political idea has begun to punch through with such weight that alarm bells have begun ringing loudly in Washington.
Under the slogan of "peaceful rising", China is selling itself to the developing world as an alternative model for ending poverty.
The pitch is now winning an audience in Latin America, and Washington is despatching the assistant secretary of state responsible for the region, Thomas Shannon, to Beijing to find out what is going on.
His aim is to negotiate the precise line which China must not cross in creating its new strategic alliance with Latin America, which has seen billions of dollars of Chinese money earmarked for infrastructure, transport, energy and defence projects there.
"We want to make sure we don't get our wires crossed," said one official arranging the talks.
The spectre of an encroaching China is made worse by a string of elections which has produced populist and US-sceptic, left-wing leaders. During the Cold War they would probably never have survived in office.
The latest may be retired army commander Ollanta Humala, who is leading the opinion polls in the Peruvian presidential election due on 9 April.
"We're concerned about the leftist countries that are dealing with China," says Congressman Dan Burton, the Republican chairman of the sub-committee on the Western Hemisphere.
"It's extremely important that we don't let a potential enemy of the US become a dominant force in this part of the world."
'Alliance of giants'
While China pleads innocence, more and more voices in Washington are chastising President George W Bush for failing to act as decisively against China.
"As a nation we need to understand that this Communist dictatorship is a government without a conscience," says Senator Lindsey Graham who has recently been to China.
"The status quo cannot be accepted and tolerated by this country any more than the Soviet Union's practices were tolerated by Ronald Reagan."
In Brazil itself, the view is very different. It is about two developing countries, the giants of their regions, forming a natural alliance.
"It's wonderful. It's amazing," says Alexandre Solis, an aircraft engineer who spent more than two years in the Chinese city of Harbin, setting up a joint venture for the ultra hi-tech Brazilian Embraer commuter jet company.
"They wanted all the information we could give them because they are determined to be best in the world."
'Nowhere else'
The flurry of China-Brazil business began less than two years ago after an exchange of visits between Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Since then China's influence can be seen everywhere in Latin America: oil, gas, railways, ports, steel and - worryingly for the US - defence.
In Sao Paulo, Chinese language classes are packed. Not only are students taught how to speak Mandarin, but they are also guided in cultural habits such as attending banquets and singing Chinese folk songs.
"Everything I do is with China now," says one student Priscila Marques, who runs a freight forwarding company. "It's Brazil-China; nowhere else."
The nub of Mr Shannon's Beijing visit, however, is to determine how much can be put down to simply business and how much China plans to export its own political system and power.
"The Chinese government has achieved the greatest victory in the history of human rights," says Charles Tang, who heads the Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce and who has been behind many of the joint-venture initiatives.
"It has removed 400 million Chinese people from poverty and enabled them to live with dignity and take part in economic life. That is the true measure of human rights.
"Brazil should analyse why China grows so much and Brazil so little."
Monroe doctrine
Washington's political protectionism of Latin America dates as far back as 1823 when President James Monroe decreed that no foreign power would have more influence there than the US itself.
The Monroe Doctrine was last used in earnest during the Cold War, when just about every Latin American country which veered to the left - from Chile to Nicaragua - experienced some form of US intervention.
This time, as China gathers confidence, ideological debate will be over which economic system - Western democracy or Chinese authoritarianism - delivers more people from poverty, and whether wealth or elections are a greater measure of freedom.
In Beijing and Washington it might be viewed as a contest of ideas, but on the ground in Latin America it could turn into something darkly familiar.
"We should always look at Latin America in relation to the Monroe Doctrine," says Congressman Burton.
"There already are [Chinese] military exchanges and hardware being sold - or given to Latin American countries. You can rest assured the US is going to do everything it can to make sure this hemisphere is safe."
Humphrey Hawksley's report from Brazil is part of Newsnight's Inside Latin America season, and can be seen on Tuesday at 2230 on BBC Two.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...as/4872522.stm
Published: 2006/04/03 14:49:54 GMT
------------
I think China is the real threat for the west and has been for quite a few years now. I think it's funny how a congressman (woman?) is labeling the chinese as a "Communist dictatorship" and "a government without a conscience" while at the same time the US is making billions of $ moving most of its manufacturing to that dictatorship.
I'm sorry, but what did you think they were going to do with all that money?
Improve the lifestyle of their citizens?
well they have removed 400 million people from poverty (so they say)...
Australia just did a deal to sell uranium to china, and also sold to their enemy neighboors taiwan.
With USA financing enemies like Russia, Iran, Venezuela by refusing to drive down the price of oil through aggressive conservation/conversion programs, the USA is its own worst enemy.
The Repugs do what is best for the energy cos, not for the USA.
The Repugs are a mother ing disaster for the USA.
======================
April 4, 2006
Chávez, Seeking Foreign Allies, Spends Billions
By JUAN FORERO
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez is spending billions of dollars of his country's oil windfall on pet projects abroad, aimed at setting up his leftist government as a political counterpoint to the conservative Bush administration in the region.
With Venezuela's oil revenues rising 32 percent last year, Mr. Chávez has been subsidizing samba parades in Brazil, eye surgery for poor Mexicans and even heating fuel for poor families from Maine to the Bronx to Philadelphia. By some estimates, the spending now surpasses the nearly $2 billion Washington allocates annually to pay for development programs and the drug war in western South America.
The new spending has given more power to a leader who has been provocatively building a bulwark against what he has called American imperialistic aims in Latin America. Mr. Chávez frequently derides Mr. Bush and his top aides. In March, he called Mr. Bush a "donkey," a "drunkard" and a "coward," daring him to invade the country.
But with the biggest oil reserves outside the Middle East, Mr. Chávez is more than an irritant. He is fast rising as the next Fidel Castro, a hero to the masses who is intent on opposing every move the United States makes, but with an important advantage.
"He's managed to do what Fidel Castro never could," said Stephen Johnson, a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Castro never had an independent source of income the way Chávez does. Chávez is filling a void that Castro left for him, leading nonaligned nations."
It remains unclear exactly how much the government has spent, because the state oil giant, Petróleos de Venezuela, has not made detailed financial records public, and its balance sheets have been shielded from independent audits. Mega-projects, like Mr. Chávez's utopian plan of building a gas pipeline through the Amazon from Venezuela to Argentina, are not likely to materialize.
But Mr. Johnson estimates that Venezuela pledged $3 billion in aid last year to its neighbors, including generous bond purchases that made the government a lender of last resort across the continent.
The Center of Economic Investigations, an economic consulting firm in Caracas, issued a study recently that said Mr. Chávez had spent more than $25 billion abroad since taking office in 1999, about $3.6 billion a year, while First Justice, a leading opposition party, put the figure at $16 billion, based on Mr. Chávez's own declarations.
What is clear is that upward of 30 countries as far away as Indonesia have received some form of aid or preferential deals.
His government has purchased $2.5 billion in Argentine debt, the Venezuelan finance minister, Nelson Merentes, recently said, and was selling oil at cut-rate prices to 13 Caribbean countries and buying a big stake in Uruguayan gas stations. Some projects are as ambitious as the planned $3 billion purchase of 36 Brazilian oil tankers. Others are as modest as the $3.8 million in aid Venezuela has provided to four African countries.
Critics see the spending as a reckless exercise in populist decadence intended to burnish Mr. Chávez's image as the region's leading statesmen while embarrassing the Bush administration, the Venezuelan leader's principal obsession since American officials gave tacit support to a failed coup against him in 2002. Venezuela may be enjoying record high oil prices, they say, but it remains poor and mismanaged.
Mr. Chávez is "spending considerable sums involving himself in the political and economic life of other countries in Latin America and elsewhere, this despite the very real economic development and social needs of his own country," said John Negroponte, the American director of national intelligence, in February at a Congressional hearing in Washington.
Antonio Ledezma, an opposition leader and one of the president's more determined foes, said the policy's aim was to build "a political platform with an international reach."
Mr. Chávez celebrates the spending as revolutionary largesse, intended to further his dream of unifying Latin America in a way Simón Bolívar could only dream of.
With the price of Venezuelan crude rising fivefold since Mr. Chávez was first elected in 1998, the spending has not hurt international reserves or Venezuela's credit worthiness. Oil analysts say the sustainability of that situation depends on the flow of revenues, the price of oil and the amount of crude Venezuela's oil industry is able to produce.
"From a fiscal perspective," said Mic e Billig, director of political risk at the Pira Energy Group, a New York consulting firm, "there's a lot of concern over the lack of savings and what an expansionary fiscal policy could do to their macroeconomic outlook should there be a downturn in prices or supply."
Critics who have questioned Venezuela's spending are roundly denounced by the government, which says its focus remains on providing for Venezuela's poor. Indeed, Venezuela plans this year to deposit $10 billion into a fund for social programs, Mr. Chávez said in February, up from $8 billion in 2005.
The programs, government officials contend, have helped reduce poverty to below 30 percent of the population. Social scientists in Venezuela dispute the claim, saying that poverty still hovers at well over 50 percent.
Whatever the truth, polls show that Venezuelans, even those who strongly support Mr. Chávez, are increasingly concerned about the spending abroad.
While the president enjoys the support of a majority of Venezuelans, polls by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Washington polling company that has worked for Venezuela's opposition movement, show that fewer than 30 percent of Venezuelans believe the country should spend its oil revenue abroad.
Even in Mr. Chávez's strongholds like Catia, a tumbledown neighborhood in western Caracas, it is not hard to find those concerned about the foreign spending, even if they support the government.
"They should first take care of their own house before taking care of others," said Benjamín Delgado, 71, a retiree who otherwise backs the government. "I think Chávez does it so he seems bigger. He wants to be seen as an international leader. There are many things about him I support. Giving away money for exactly nothing, I don't like that."
Big deals — often announced on Mr. Chávez's weekly nationwide television and radio broadcast — go to the heart of the president's persona, that of a revolutionary out to remake a region he says has suffered under Washington's thumb. In the process, critics note, the Venezuelan government has fallen short on the more mundane aspects of governing, like fixing bridges, building homes or running hospitals.
"I do think this is a vulnerability of Chávez, that he prefers the grandiose to the pedestrian," said Michael Shifter, a policy analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy group, who recently visited Caracas.
There is little doubt, however, that the spending has won Mr. Chávez stature and support abroad. For Argentina, the debt purchases helped President Néstor Kirchner, Venezuela's left-leaning ally, to pay off that country's $9.8 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, ending Argentina's stormy relationship with the group.
In Cuba, Venezuela has supplied nearly 100,000 barrels of cut-rate oil per day — a deal Cuba repays with doctors and other services — making Mr. Chávez a benefactor on a par with the Soviet Union, which once bankrolled Castro's economy.
In the Bronx this past winter, Citgo, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, provided heating fuel at a 40 percent discount to some 8,000 low-income residents of 75 apartment buildings.
Even in Philadelphia, where thousands of households are benefiting from a program by Citgo to provide heating oil at a significant discount, people were won over, despite Mr. Chávez's antagonism toward Mr. Bush.
"All I can say is thank God for him for being able to help me and some others get some oil," said Geraldine Shields, a homeowner who received 200 gallons of free oil in January and will be able to buy fuel at a 40 percent discount. "It's time somebody starting thinking of the little guy."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
If it does come to blows with China, I hope it's sooner rather than later. Even if things blow up now I don't expect the US to have a whole lot of support, but in a couple of years China may have so many nations in their back pocket the US might be on their own.
Unfortunately their definition of poverty is quite different than mine. Don't forget we used to live in a country with the best educational system, the best medical services and most open democracy in the world [/sarcasm]
Gerryatrics
It's not an issue whether the US will be alone or not, it's more an issue of doing something about it. US money is the main fuel for the economic/industrial boom in China. Many western countries have already recognize the potential danger of a rich dictatorship with a billion+ citizens and are restricting trade to China. Their latest foray into south America is only the beginning and a sign of things to come (or at least of things they are trying to do).
I have nothing against the Chinese, but I'm scared less of the Chinese government as it is now!
sadly the educational system and medical services haven't changed
dictatorship of goverment or dictatorship of corporation - either way we're screwed. Democracy is dying, the one with the most money usualy wins the election, the people aren't voting and when they do, it makes me wish they wouldn't. What has changed since the last election in Slovenia? - nothing, all they did was replaced all the people in state run/owned companies. The previous party in charge didn't care about "little people", this one cares even less.
The corporation always wins.
Of course the dimm-o-craps and environmentalist stopping us from
dilling into our resources have nothing to do with it, do they? Give me
a break!
Iraq war has everything with it.
from wikipedia:
United States proven oil reserves declined to a little more than 21 billion barrels by the end of 2004 according to the Energy Information Administration
...
United States crude oil production peaked in late 1970 at over 10 million barrels per day, but declined to 5 million bpd by early 2006. In fact, production in the fall of 2005 fell to only 4.2 million bpd as a result of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.
At the same time, US consumption of petroleum products increased to over 20 million bpd.
USA doesn't have all that much reserves. (they would be spent in ~1000 days)
coincidently:
exxon mobile's value has doubled since the start of Iraq war
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=XOM&...=on&z=m&q=l&c=
so has british petrol's value
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BP&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
somebody is getting very rich. I wonder who they supported in elections?
^^give me a source that has some authority, not something that anyone can
edit. Just google a little bit, then get back to me.
Why are superpowers expansionists?
Can't a powerfull US and a powerfull China co-exist?
China is no longer the hardline communist dictatorship it once was and it will get more and more democratic down the road.
See that's the part I disagree. The power is still in the hand of a small political elite. There is no real elections and frankly they still use comunistic or traditional/ethnic indoctrination to rule the masses. The only real difference from let's say 15 years ago is that they opened the country to foreign trade - which profited the political elite the most.
Do you think that a repeat of the tianamen(sp?) square is impossible today? I don't.
One thing I'll give them is that they are much better at PR than they were...
"China is no longer the hardline communist dictatorship it once was"
Now you're on your pollyanne/rose-tinted glasses tricycle.
China hasn't been communist except in name for a long time.
However, communism was just a pretext/label for what was/is a hard-line dictatorship that uses the Army and all other means to protect and empower the totally corrupt ruling class and suppress all dissent.
The Repugs refuse to do anything about reducing US dependence of oil, which puts it on a collision course with China in the world oil market.
US dependence on oil is the major, fundamental geo-political weakness of the USA (not Muslim terrorism), but that dependence is good for the energy co's, so the Repugs continue to protect/enrich their paymasters while failing to protect the USA's geo-political interests and security.
i didn't go into search for more data/sources, because i didn't think it's something someone would have problem with, which is why i didn't even give a link to the article, just mentioned i got the data from wiki.
on request:
USA oil reserves:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pe..._dcu_NUS_a.htm
USA daily consumption (well it's product supply, but i'm asuming no-one in america is building a huge stockpile of gasoline):
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pe..._wpsup_k_w.htm
i trust USA gov has enough authority?
p.s. a good wiki article usually has sources, where the data was collected from - so you can validate the claims.
Says who ?
Velik, I salute you. Not so much for your points, per say, but for shutting X-whatever down.
He is noticeably absent from this thread after that post. So much for sources.
bump
There is a fundemental problem when one party views another countries desire to improve their own economic situation as a growing problem.
This was my favorite part of the article. On a long enough timeline, isn't every a potential enemy of the US? Should no other country be allowed to become an economic "dominant force" anywhere in the world? More evidence that our elected leaders seem to think that "Free Trade" only applies to Americans."It's extremely important that we don't let a potential enemy of the US become a dominant force in this part of the world."
Nuke 'em. Nuke 'em all!
hahahaha, scott, that was the exact line that caused me to cough from laughter and bump this thread
Why? I thought foreign invesment was good for developing countries...Washington is despatching the assistant secretary of state responsible for the region, Thomas Shannon, to Beijing to find out what is going on.
His aim is to negotiate the precise line which China must not cross in creating its new strategic alliance with Latin America
Why is it worse? I mean, free market, the one who is willing to invest the most, can bring their money here, right? Isn't it what capitalism is all about?The spectre of an encroaching China is made worse by a string of elections which has produced populist and US-sceptic, left-wing leaders. During the Cold War they would probably never have survived in office.
Leftist? If we are "leftist" countries then he should give up, because we will follow blindly any doctrine that Beijing dictates."We're concerned about the leftist countries that are dealing with China," says Congressman Dan Burton, the Republican chairman of the sub-committee on the Western Hemisphere.
"It's extremely important that we don't let a potential enemy of the US become a dominant force in this part of the world."
Yeah, Reagan made a lot to make the Soviet Union collapse"The status quo cannot be accepted and tolerated by this country any more than the Soviet Union's practices were tolerated by Ronald Reagan."
Neither. This is what people outside Latin America don't get about the current situation. We been ed pretty hard by every world power for quite a while. Now, the region is starting to realize its potential, looking first to develop the country and then the region. Foreign capitals can come and invest as long as they accept to play by the rules of the law, not doing whatever they want.This time, as China gathers confidence, ideological debate will be over which economic system - Western democracy or Chinese authoritarianism - delivers more people from poverty, and whether wealth or elections are a greater measure of freedom.
Mr. Burton, sincerely: YOU! The Monroe Doctrine has brought nothing but hundreds of thousands of people killed and poverty."We should always look at Latin America in relation to the Monroe Doctrine," says Congressman Burton.
Coups won't work this time, so you must come down here and do the job yourself."There already are [Chinese] military exchanges and hardware being sold - or given to Latin American countries. You can rest assured the US is going to do everything it can to make sure this hemisphere is safe."
oops
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