Interview: Scholar calls for closer China-LatAm ties in politics, culture

China-Latin America relation should advance in the political and cultural spheres to match the trade and economic links built in recent years, said Argemiro Procopio, a professor of International Relations at the University of Brasilia, in an interview with Xinhua.

Procopio hailed China's Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly its desire to lift the cooperation to a new level.

"China's commercial presence is clear everywhere, including in the shops and cars ... Made-in-China products have great added value, which is fantastic. However, culturally speaking, in Latin America China is still far behind the U.S. and Europe, as well as in politics," he said.

Nevertheless, he feels this might be changing due to China's growing close ties with the region.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has recently paid state visits to Ecuador, Peru and Chile.

"This shows China's desire to play an ever greater role in the Pacific. Those countries were called distant neighbors but China wants to make them closer neighbors," said Procopio.

This is shown in the paper, he said, which seeks to direct the ship of these relations towards a more secure and stable route.

According to Procopio, China launched the paper at a very opportune moment. "This is something few European countries have done. China took the lead and provided a symbolic fact though Latin America has been historically closely linked to Europe and the U.S.," he explained.

Acknowledging that investments and exports were the first barriers to overcome for China and Latin America, given China's rising consumption needs, Procopio would now like to see common development in other areas.

For example, the cooperation between the two sides could be mutually beneficial through common development in science and technology.

Procopio, who has written a number of books about China, said that overcoming the lack of knowledge about each other would help both China and Latin America. Endi