Abstract
Jenkins says I present a “rosy” view of China’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, and he contends I made “surprisingly few references” to the academic literature on these relations. I find this comment to be rather hypocritical, since his publications ignore the Chinese literature on this subject. Like most Western scholars, Jenkins is dismissive of what the Chinese have to say. I have lived, taught, and carried out research in the People’s Republic of China. It is hard for me to understand how the Chinese view of China’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean can be ignored by most Western scholars and the media. My article exposes and criticizes these kinds of biases in the current Western production of knowledge on China–Latin American and Caribbean relations. It is not meant to be a thorough review of the academic literature on this subject.
Gallagher and Porzecanski’s book The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization is one of the best examples of the current production of knowledge on this subject. It is the most-cited book on China–Latin American and Caribbean relations on the Internet, where there are thousands of references to it, reviews and comments on it, video interviews with Gallagher, etc. Jenkins himself reviewed it when it was published in 2012, and his endorsement is on the back cover. On its front cover is a fire-breathing dragon, which takes up nearly half of the cover and definitely communicates the Sinophobic idea that China’s relations with Latin America are a threat to the region’s future. Jenkins waves the red dragon flag of his Welsh ancestors to protest my assertion that dragon imagery is used to denigrate China. Yet dragons are clearly considered malevolent and destructive creatures in the West (Wales excepted).
Jenkins’s publications, which cite Gallagher’s work, give lip service to the most obvious benefits of Latin America’s relations with China but then make the case that China’s exports are displacing Brazilian (and Mexican) manufactures both at home and in foreign markets. He presents many graphs and tables and makes various arguments, but his findings reveal that Chinese products have less than 5 percent import penetration in Brazil’s domestic market. How does this minimal impact compare with the penetration of US, European, and Japanese products in Brazil’s (and Mexico’s) domestic market? Jenkins does not tell us.
Lack of knowledge about China’s foreign relations leads Jenkins to suggest mistakenly in his review of Gallagher and Porzecanski’s book (Jenkins, 2012) that “the diplomatic competition between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan has been the dominant issue in terms of China’s relations with Central America (and the Caribbean).” But this competition has been on hold since 2008, when Ma Ying-jeou became president of Taiwan and a tacit “diplomatic truce” between Beijing and Taipei was established. As a result, Beijing has declined overtures from Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts, and other countries to switch their diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the PRC. Today, they are also tacit allies in the multination dispute over maritime boundaries in the South China Sea.
Jenkins makes much ado about my use of the quote “China is an awakening monster that can eat us,” which is prominently displayed on the first page of Gallagher and Porzecanski’s book. Jenkins evidently does not know that this 2004 statement by a Nicaraguan trade official does not represent the views of the current Sandinista-led government of Nicaragua (2006 to the present) but does represent the views of the right wing in Nicaragua. Gallagher has repeatedly used this quote. For example, in Opinión Sur he states: “In 2004, Carlos Zuñiga, Nicaraguan CAFTA negotiator, was quoted as saying ‘China is an awakening monster that can eat us’” and then he adds, “What Mr. Zúñiga didn’t realize was that, figuratively anyway, China already was” eating Latin America (Gallagher, 2008). This outrageous characterization of China’s relations with Latin America comes from the Boston University scholar whose work on this subject is cited the most.
I have run out of the space allotted to me, but I want to answer the rhetorical question Jenkins asks about whether the Chinese panda bear is really the best representation of China. My answer is yes! The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, 2015) reports that there are now over 1,800 panda bears in China and they have increased 17 percent in recent years because they are protected in 67 natural reserves and considered a national treasure. They are a global icon of wildlife conservation, China’s national mascot (not the dragon), and they have played a colorful role in China’s diplomacy as a symbol of peace and goodwill.