ANDRÉS OPPENHEIMER - Bogotá, Colombia
It is PROBABLE THAT Thomas A. Shannon, in charge of Latin American matters of the Department of State of United States, have tried to transmit subtly, in their recent trip for China, a message: don't tunnel the democratic consent of Latin America. Will they pay him attention the Chinese? Let us see the facts.
It is the first time that a high official of the Department of State travels exclusively to Beijing to discuss matters of Latin America. Their trip takes place after conservative critics in Washington that the president's government Bush would have stayed sleeping while China is increasing its economic, military and political knots quickly with Latin America.
Bush's government is divided on how to react before the new paper of China in the region. The Department of State doesn't go to China like a threat in Latin America, but as a country in growth that he needs matters cousins to be able to maintain its rates of growth. According to this thought line, China is so absorbed by its internal necessities that he doesn't have energy to rush to political adventures in other corners of the planet.
The Department of Defense, on the other hand, fears that China becomes the main source of military training in the region, partly due to a recent North American law that prohíbe the military help to countries that allow to arrest American citizens to be processed by the International Criminal Court. Washington should also worry on the activities of China in intelligence and cybernetic war in the region, the officials of the Pentagon say.
Bush's government is divided on how to react before the paper of China
In an interview before leaving, Shannon told me that its visit of three days to Beijing would be "to make consultations". As he said, China plays a paper "more and more important" in Latin America, and therefore it is important "to make sure that we understand what each one is making well (in the region), to be sure that there are not crossed cables."
Which would a possible crossed cable be? I asked him. Shannon answered me that although he doesn't believe that China wants involves in the internal politics of the region, "we see that the region has reached a widespread consent on the democracy, the free market and the protection to the security of the democratic state, and our interest is to be sure that China respects that consent."
My conclusion: Bush's government goes that, besides increasing his imports of Latin America in 600% in the last five years, to invest about $1.000 millions a year in the region, and to send dozens of missions of military training to Latin American countries, China won observer's status in the American Organization of States, and it is looking for a similar paper in the Interamerican Bank of Development.
It would not surprise me that Bush's government wants to trace a line in the sand, and to make sure that China won't become a source of support military regional extra for anti-American radical governments in the region, as Venezuela, like in its moment it was it the former Soviet Union with Cuba.
The most probable thing is that the Chinese will tranquilize Shannon. Judging by what I listened in interviews with Chinese officials the last year in Beijing, the main political interest of China in Latin America is to preserve the stability, thing that there is not disrupciones in its supplies of matters cousins.
And in their quality of second commercial partner from United States after Canada, China doesn't have a lot to win causing a confrontation with Washington in Latin América. United States should not be alarmed, at least for the time being.
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