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China and Colombia move towards a strategic partnership
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Colombia is one of the United States’ closest allies in Latin America
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Colombia has yet to join Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative
(Updates with key points on memorandums of understanding)
By Liz Lee and Ryan Woo
BEIJING, Oct 25 (Reuters) – China upgraded diplomatic relations with Colombia to a strategic partnership on Wednesday, boosting efforts with one of the United States’ longest-standing allies to expand its influence and presence in Latin America.
The two countries have improved relations, first established in 1980, when Colombian President Gustavo Petro met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on a stopover in Beijing this week, the first in the world’s second-largest economy since he took office last year.
Improved relations with Colombia mean that China now has strategic ties with 10 of the 11 South American countries with which it has relations. Guyana is the only country in the region with which it has bilateral relations.
In years, China has stepped up its charm offensive in South America, Central America and the Caribbean, a region of strategic importance to its main rival, the United States.
The region is also vital to China because it is home to a handful of countries that have no ties to Beijing but recognize democratically governed Taiwan as a sovereign state. Paraguay is the newest South American country to have ties to Taiwan, which China claims as a component. of their territory.
During the COVID pandemic, China was the first country to send vaccines to Colombia. In 2021, in recognition of China’s help in the fight against the coronavirus, Xi invited the Colombian people to deliver a speech via video link.
Chinese imports from Colombia have risen sharply in recent years, making it the South American country’s second-largest trading partner after the United States. In 2022, shipments from Colombia to China totaled $7 billion, up about 20% from five years earlier.
The two countries signed 12 cooperation agreements during the visit, Petro said in a statement, adding one that authorizes imports of Colombian beef starting next year and another that authorizes quinoa shipments, as well as the creation of several teams of corridors aimed at improving trade.
Colombia is one of the United States’ closest allies in the region. Colombia, one of Latin America’s middle-income and one of the oldest democracies, established ties with the United States in 1822.
Colombia has yet to sign up to Xi’s Multi-regional Belt and Road Infrastructure Initiative (BRI), unlike many of its neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Former Colombian President Iván Duque, who welcomed closer ties with China and visited Beijing in 2019, had in the past expressed a willingness to join the BRI.
‘HUGE IMBALANCE’
Upon his arrival in Beijing on Tuesday, Petro praised the increase in Colombian exports to China and the reactivation of the Andean country’s national rail network.
China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) is expected to complete two lines of the Bogotá Metro by 2026, a $4 billion allocation financed 30% through Chinese banks and awarded to consortium CHEC, Xian Metro Company and Canadian consortium Bombardier Inc in 2019. .
Colombia also awarded its RegioTram soft train formula to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) in 2019.
China’s state-owned mining company Zijin Mining acquired a gold mine in Colombia in 2019, but the task has faced safety issues and repeated obstacles.
Despite loans, investments, and grants to build infrastructure, it has been suggested that China imports more from South America.
“When we look at the industrial balance between Colombia and China, we see a wonderful imbalance, a wonderful inequality, a product of the economic history of the two countries,” Petro told Xi on Wednesday. “There’s a huge deficit. “
Among the 11 South American countries that have diplomatic relations with Beijing, Colombia has the largest industrial deficit with China, despite the expansion of Chinese imports. Colombia had an industrial deficit of more than $8 billion last year.
Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and Suriname also recorded industrial deficits with China in 2022. (Reporting by Liz Lee and Ryan Woo; additional reporting by Ellen Zhang and Julia Symmes Cobb; editing by Bernadette Baum, Robert Birsel, Nick Macfie and Mark Porter)