“China firmly supports the just position of Latin American countries on opposing foreign interference and safeguarding their nations’ sovereignty.”
On August 26, Beijing blasted US-led meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs, including by spreading misinformation about the recent elections. Three days later, China’s Foreign Ministry took aim at US interventionism in Latin America as a whole. In response to a question from Global Times, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said “the US may have announced the end of the Monroe Doctrine, but the fact is, for the past more than 200 years, hegemonism and power politics, which is intrinsic in (sic) the Doctrine, is far from being abandoned.”
Here’s the full exchange, taken from a transcript of the Lin Juan’s press conference posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s official website:
Global Times: Recently, several Latin American countries expressed their dissatisfaction with and protest against US interference in their internal affairs. In response to the inappropriate remarks by US Ambassador to Mexico on Mexico’s judicial reform, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that Mexico is “not a colony of any foreign nation,” and the US has to “learn to respect the sovereignty of Mexico.”
Honduran President Xiomara Castro condemned the US, saying that its “interference and interventionism violate international law.” Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said on social media that “Cuba is closely aware of the destabilizing activities of the NED disguised in the name of democracy values.” What’s more, Venezuela criticized the US for interfering in its election. Bolivia revealed that it was pressured by the “big northern power” after expressing its interest in joining BRICS. What is your comment?
Lin Jian: We noted reports on that. The US may have announced the end of the Monroe Doctrine, but the fact is, for the past more than 200 years, hegemonism and power politics, which is intrinsic in the Doctrine, is far from being abandoned.
China firmly supports the just position of Latin American countries on opposing foreign interference and safeguarding their nations’ sovereignty. The US should not turn a deaf ear to the legitimate concerns and the just call of Latin American countries and do whatever it likes. We urge the US to discard the outdated Monroe Doctrine and interventionism as soon as possible, stop unilateral actions of bullying, coercion, sanctions and blockade, and develop relations and have mutually beneficial cooperation with regional countries based on mutual respect, equality and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
The US’s hegemonism and power politics runs counter to the unstoppable historical trend of Latin American countries staying independent and seeking strength through unity. Such approaches will win no support and be consigned to the dustbin of history.
One can only hope so, given the enormous amount of damage Monroeism has inflicted on Latin America. But before that happens, Washington seems intent on further stirring things up in its direct neighbourhood.
A Long Time Coming
This response from China has been a long time coming. As we reported in Jan 2023, the US is in a desperate struggle to turn back the clock in Latin America after China has emerged as a major player in the region, even overtaking the US and the EU to become South America’s largest trade partner. A growing list of countries in the region have switched diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China and have signed trade and investment deals with Beijing. As part of its response to this threat, Washington is rejigging the Monroe Doctrine:
China is already South America’s biggest trading partner. The US still holds sway over Central America and is still the region’s largest trading partner as a whole. But that is primarily due to its gigantic trade flows with Mexico, which account for 71% of all US-LatAm trade. As Reuters reported in June, if you take Mexico out of the equation, China has already overtaken the US as Latin America’s largest trading partner. Excluding Mexico, total trade flows — i.e., imports and exports — between China and Latin America reached $247 billion last year, far in excess of the US’ $173 billion.
The US is now in a desperate, dangerous race to turn back the clock.
To do so, it is rejigging the Monroe Doctrine, a 200-year old US foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism on the American continent. It held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act against the United States. Now, it is applying that doctrine to China and Russia.
General Richardson, [´´´´commander of US Southern Command], detailed how Washington, together with US Southern Command, is actively negotiating the sale of lithium in the lithium triangle to US companies through its web of embassies, with the goal of “box[ing] out” out adversaries.
One can safely assume that this “boxing out” process applies not only to lithium but to all of Latin America’s strategic minerals and assets, including rare earth elements, lithium, gold, oil, natural gas, light sweet crude (huge deposits of which have been found off the coast of Guyana), copper, abundant food crops, and fresh water — all coveted by the US government and military, and the corporations whose interests they serve.
Last Thursday (August 29), China’s Foreign Ministry finally responded to this reduxed form of “Monroeism” by urging Washington to abandon its policies of interventionism
in Latin America. The message came on the same day that the US State Department issued a press release insisting that “Nicolas Maduro and his representatives have tampered with the results of that election, falsely claimed victory, and carried out wide-spread repression to maintain power.”
China has a lot invested in Venezuela’s Chavista government, which the US has spent more then two decades trying to topple, and Beijing is determined to protect that investment. In September 2023, it upgraded its relations with Venezuela to the most important level by designating it an “all weather strategic partner”. China’s President Xi Jinping, together with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, was also one of the first world leaders to congratulate Maduro after the election results were announced over a month ago.
Venezuela is one of two highly resource-rich South American nations to have applied for BRICS membership in recent months — the other being Bolivia, whose government recently suffered an attempted coup d’état, though it is still unclear whether the US played a role. If the applications are accepted, the BRICS will be able to count among its ranks the country with the world’s largest oil reserves (Venezuela) as well as the country with the world’s largest lithium deposits (Bolivia).
Stirring the Pot
In recent weeks, the US and Canadian ambassadors to Mexico have tried to derail Mexico’s outgoing Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador government’s judicial reforms, just months after the US Drugs Enforcement Agency spread unproven allegations that AMLO was on the payroll of Mexican drug cartels during Mexico’s recent elections — to no avail: AMLO’s successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won by a historic landslide. AMLO has responded by “pausing” Mexico’s relations with the US and Canadian embassies. The move, while largely symbolic, has at least put an end, for now, to the two ambassadors’ very public denouncements of his reforms…
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Nick Corbishley 