Yearender: Joint China-LatAm ventures model of South-South cooperation

In November, 15 Ecuadorian university students flew to China to learn about the latest advances in information and communications technology (ICT) at telecom giant Huawei, as part of the company's "Telecom Seeds for the Future" program.

In May, a group of Colombian students graduated from the same program, the second batch from the Latin American country eager to train qualified IT talents.

Huawei's innovative program aims to develop local ICT talent and enhance knowledge transfer while strengthening local digital communities in Latin America and other parts of the world where they do business.

In that sense, the program represents the type of South-South cooperation that marks the current China-Latin America ties.

Win-win partnerships have been the hallmark of regional cooperation, in which each side stands to gain from the endeavor.

Cooperation between China and the region's largest bloc, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which gathers 33 countries, has particularly been intensified in the fields of science, technology and innovation, to help drive the region's transition from producers of raw materials to makers of value-added goods.

To that end, the First China-CELAC Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation took place on Sept. 16-18 in Quito, Ecuador, which this year held the rotating presidency of the Latin American bloc.

"China has bet on science, technology and innovation to achieve domestically-driven development," says Ecuador's Minister of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation Rene Ramirez, adding CELAC "has much to learn from China, a country that has taken a great leap forward in the field."

Chinese technology is transferring to Latin America through modern bus plants in Venezuela and nuclear plants in Argentina, as well as telecommunications firms in Brazil, Panama and other regional countries.

In 2015, China's electronics firm Xiaomi started making smartphones in Brazil for the local market, representing a successful case of the China-LatAm production capacity cooperation, which is expected to get fast-tracked amid Latin America's need for industrial capacity growth.

"If cooperation with China helps bridge our well-known gaps in infrastructure, logistics and connectivity, we can stimulate intraregional trade and the development of regional value chains," said Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the Santiago-based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

In an editorial published to coincide with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to the region in May, Barcena noted China has made a "sustained effort to forge a joint path" towards development since it recognized the strategic nature of ties with Latin America in a 2008 White Paper stating its official policy.

Premier Li's four-nation swing through South America followed the adoption in Beijing in January of a 2015-2019 Cooperation Plan between China and CELAC that serves as a road map to promote joint projects and sets concrete goals in infrastructure, trade, investment and education, among other areas.

The infrastructure projects underway are part of that plan, to help integration in Latin America and connectivity between China and CELAC.

Bilateral trade between China and Latin America amounted to some 263.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, and the plan calls for doubling that figure over the next 10 years, as well as boosting investment to 250 billion dollars.

While Latin America values its ties with the world's second largest economy, there's also concern among some sectors that relations with the Asian giant may lead to too much compromise on sovereignty or disadvantageous accords.

That fear, according to Argentinian economist and China expert Gustavo Girado, is more a reflection of Latin America's colonial past, and centuries of exploitation by Western powers, than its present reality.

In a recent interview with Argentinian state news agency Telam, Girado was asked about his thoughts on Argentina's increasing cooperation and trade ties with China, and whether they presented an imbalance the country should be wary of.

The bilateral relationship between Argentina and China today "is radically different from the one established one or two centuries ago with quasi-imperial powers, such as Great Britain," said Girado, alluding to the infamous 1933 Roca-Runciman trade treaty, which Argentineans still refer to today to denote any agreement that overwhelmingly favors the foreign side.

Signed in London and denounced in Buenos Aires, the treaty obliged Argentina to accept a slew of conditions beneficial to Britain, including cutting or eliminating tariffs on hundreds of British imports, such as coal, in exchange for beef purchases.

"China," said Girado, "differs greatly from what Britain was two centuries ago."

"It's true that today as before, we purchase manufactured goods from China, but 15 years ago we almost exclusively bought consumer goods from them, and today we largely buy capital goods, that is reproductive capital," Girado said.

In addition, "Beijing is willing to move forward with a great number of institutional relations that bring about progress to the benefit of Argentina," he said, citing a bilateral agreement to build a satellite monitoring station in Argentina's Nequen province with Chinese financing.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who co-chaired the two-day China-CELAC Forum in January, said China would work for both sides to reap early harvests from the forum and build a new model of South-South cooperation.

The China-CELAC cooperation is "open, inclusive and balanced," Wang said, adding "in cooperation with developing countries, China will consider their need for self-development... instead of simply trade and investment or mere one-off sales of resources and energy." Endi