Americas Quarterly's New Issue: China's Evolving Agenda for the Region
Americas Quarterly's New Issue: China's Evolving Agenda for the Region
The magazine looks at how, after years of offering loans and new ports, Beijing is now focused on technology and military diplomacy with Latin America.
Read the press release in Spanish and Portuguese
New York, October 14, 2025 — “China has entered a new phase in its engagement with Latin America,” writes Margaret Myers, the author of the cover story of Americas Quarterly's new issue. “The days of Beijing showering the region with loans and large-scale infrastructure projects may be over, or at least diminished, replaced by more deliberate engagement and a focus on specific sectors of Chinese interest, especially at the higher end of the value chain.”
Myers, a senior advisor of the Inter-American Dialogue, explains that China’s involvement with Latin America is rapidly evolving “toward a more targeted, strategic approach.” The region’s relative share of investments under China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure projects, for example, is falling. China, instead, is seeking to manufacture in Latin America, including electric vehicle factories in Brazil and auto parts companies across Mexico, all of which rely on imports of components from China. In other instances, Chinese companies are aiming to be primary suppliers of wide-ranging technological equipment and services.
“These and other deals align closely with Beijing’s priorities for high-quality, innovation-driven growth, driving a shift toward selective engagement both regionally and globally,” writes Myers in her story, titled “China's New Playbook in Latin America."
Ryan Berg, Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Henry Ziemer and Jessie Hu of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), analyze how China is challenging the United States for the lead in military diplomacy in the region.
In the piece, they point to visits by high-level Chinese military leaders to the region, exchanges and dialogues between military colleges and defense universities, joint war games, exercises, and exhibitions in countries like Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador. “The question is no longer whether China is competing for the hearts of Latin America’s militaries. It’s whether the United States is prepared to compete back,” they write.
Brenda Estefan, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, explains how Latin America’s governments are navigating the U.S.-China rivalry, with governments taking different paths depending on their geography, domestic priorities and interactions so far with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Mie Hoejris Dahl, a Latin America-focused journalist, writes how Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley has emerged as the leading voice of small island states in the global fight against climate change.
The decades-long campaign to protect indigenous territories in the Amazon, like the Javari Valley, has been critical for both preserving its forests and mitigating global climate change, writes the award-winning journalist and writer Scott Wallace.
Susan Segal, president and CEO of Americas Society/Council of the Americas, says that recent encouraging signs suggest that U.S. economic engagement in the region has increased and that policymakers better understand the importance of building public-private partnerships to support regional investment.
Also in this issue:
- Mexican company Corporación Interamericana de Entretenimiento (CIE) has evolved from a bold bet on concerts and live events into one of the top four entertainment powerhouses in the world, writes Cyntia Barrera Díaz.
- One year after AQ’s issue on hunger, Luiza Franco highlights that the problem is still a critical challenge for Latin America but that the region has seen signs of improvement.
The full issue is available at americasquarterly.org
To request interviews with the authors, or to request publication permission, please contact AS/COA Media Relations at mediarelations@as-coa.org
