Trade is a Hot Topic as Chinese President Travels to Mexico
Trade is a Hot Topic as Chinese President Travels to Mexico
"China is clearly on the quest for oil and natural gas from the region," comments AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth on China’s President Xi Jinping's three-day visit to Mexico.
When China’s president meets with his Mexican counterpart here this week, the two men will try to revive a relationship that has cooled in recent years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Mexico today for a three-day visit in which he and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto are expected, among other things, to discuss economic cooperation. The visit comes soon after Mr. Peña Nieto’s April trip to China – a quick diplomatic turnaround that experts say augurs a new stage in the relationship.
The two countries are trading partners, but they are also competitors, especially in exports to the lucrative US market….
China's 'quest'
Until now, China has largely overlooked Mexico, even as it strengthened ties with other Latin American and Caribbean nations in its hunt for natural resources. Of the $25 billion invested by largely state-owned Chinese companies in the region between 2000 and 2011, Mexico captured less than 1 percent of the investment, according to Mr. Dussel Peters.
China’s Xi may now see promise in Mexico’s energy sector, especially since Peña Nieto has stoked talk of reforms that could open the national oil company to limited foreign investment and potentially boost production (as well as exports to China).
“China is clearly on the quest for oil and natural gas from the region,” says Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas in Washington.
It’s a way for China to secure future economic expansion, Mr. Farnsworth says – “much less a strategic play in terms of politics and much more an economic play. It’s not to displace the US. I don’t see that as their endgame….”
