Anchored in the heart of colonial San Salvador, a towering and expansive library was this week inaugurated by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, the latest sign of China’s growing influence across Central America.
With the Chinese ambassador at his side, Bukele toured the seven-story building, erected at a cost of US$54 million paid for by China.
The building sprawls over 2.4 hectares, and contains gamer and robotics areas, interactive digital screens, and a digital library and shelves containing 360,000 books, the government said on Tuesday last week.
Photo: Reuters
A day later, the son of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Laureano Ortega, inspected 250 Chinese-made buses and thanked Beijing for the “special relationship” he asserted was lifting the nation out of poverty.
“The new politics of the region has accelerated China’s influence and put distance between the US and Central America, from the leftist authoritarian Ortega regime to the right-wing authoritarian Bukele regime,” said Evan Ellis, a researcher at the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute.
Since Costa Rica switched diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 2007, China has steadily gained ground in Central America, establishing relations with Panama (2017), El Salvador (2018), Nicaragua (2021) and most recently Honduras earlier this year.
“China’s efforts in Central America have mostly been driven by an interest in isolating Taiwan,” said Margaret Myers, a specialist in China and Latin America at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.
In Central America, only Guatemala and Belize are among Taiwan’s 13 diplomatic allies.
“Central America is part of this isolation effort,” Salvadoran economist Cesar Villalona said.
Nicaragua on Thursday ratified a free-trade agreement with China, while El Salvador and Honduras are pursuing their own trade accords with Beijing.
However, commercial trade ties are heavily tilted in China’s favor.
In Costa Rica, for example, imports from China have reached US$3.35 billion, while its annual exports total only US$400 million, and El Salvador imports US$2.8 billion while exporting US$48 million, official trade figures showed.
“China is very far. Our productive capacity is poor and shipping costs and insurance rates make it hard to compete on cost. In Nicaragua, the deficit will grow” with the free-trade pact, said Enrique Saenz, a Nicaraguan economist living in exile in Costa Rica.
Although these economies are not important to China, they are along key trade routes.
Panama, crucial due to its cross-isthmus canal, has had Chinese companies involved in the construction of maritime terminals on the waterway, of which China is the world’s second largest client, after the US.
China’s largest banks have a presence in Panama’s financial center and dozens of Chinese companies offer goods in the Colon Free Zone (at the Caribbean terminus of the canal), former Panamanian vice minister of foreign affairs Luis Miguel Hincapie said.
Myers said that Central American countries “represent a notable market for Chinese tech exporters.”
Laureano Ortega, in whose country Chinese companies are planning road, airport and energy projects, spoke of a 5G technology plan after recently visiting the Shenzhen headquarters of telecommunications giant Huawei.
In addition to the library, China is to build a 50,000-seat soccer stadium in El Salvador, larger than the one it built in Costa Rica, as well as a shipping wharf on the Pacific coast, all at little or no cost.
Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden warned Costa Rica’s president and several other Latin American leaders gathered in Washington not to fall into a “debt trap” — a veiled reference to China.
“The trap is already in place,” Honduran Minister of the Presidency Rodolfo Pastor said, referring to his country’s huge debt with organizations and foreign banks.
Pastor said the relationship with the US over the past 40 years has not helped the region to “get out of poverty or trigger development.”
“We have to bet on something new,” Pastor said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as