Spanish – The coronavirus originated in Wuhan and began to spread around the world. Subsequently, it was declared a pandemic, and the Chinese regime has not stopped moving its diplomatic cards to clean up its image since it is the main culprit of this tragedy. Xi Jinping’s administration has donated (and also sold) defective and damaged face masks and medical supplies. It will now lend money to the region to “buy doses of COVID-19 vaccine.”
Some will say that this is “a nice gesture on the part of China,” but the reality is that Chinese loans carry with them a dark interest that goes beyond cleaning up their image through poor management of the initial outbreak of the virus.
An article by Emmanuel Rincón published here at the PanAm Post, titled China “Buys” Half of Africa, Expands Territory to Conquer World, reveals how the regime has bought the consciences of African governments to grow in influence on the African continent and in multilateral organizations. What is China doing? It lends large sums of money, so much so that the regime has already lent more money to developing countries—especially in Africa—than the world’s big financial institutions: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and all the other world governments.
These Chinese loans have an attractive facade, but internally they bring a lot of problems for their debtors. About 60% of these loans are granted with fewer guarantees, but most of them have higher interest rates and shorter maturities. What is the result of this? These countries cannot pay off their debts to the Chinese regime from their income for various reasons: poverty, unmet basic needs, or corruption. Then, governments have no choice but to hand over their natural or economic resources to the interests of China. Moreover, they have to be safe votes for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in every multilateral vote that is in the interest of the Xi Jinping administration.
This is what happened last year in the vote for the leadership of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), where Qu Dongyu, former vice-minister of finance of the CCP and member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, won the general leadership of the organization. The vote of the African countries played a crucial role.
Qu’s election as FAO Director was a major blow to the European Union and the United States because it exposed the West’s loss of influence at the UN and confirmed that the UN is now an arm of the Chinese Communist Party because of the latter’s far-reaching influence. This was clearly evident in recent months with the WHO-China relationship during the coronavirus pandemic.
What is China’s plan for Latin America?
China has got multilateral agencies and the world’s leading financiers practically in its pocket, combined with the interference in the African continent. The Asian giant intends to continue buying consciences in the region with the loan to buy vaccines and the promise that its treatments will be “universally accessible.”
The announcement was made at a meeting co-chaired by the governments of China and Mexico and attended by Latin American and Caribbean countries. The objective was to discuss international cooperation against COVID-19 and its challenges arising from the global health emergency.
The video conference was attended by Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The other countries—Argentina, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay—participated with diplomatic representation.
The Mexican Foreign Minister announced in a conference from the National Palace that Mexico is analyzing and participating in several projects that will allow the acceleration of development, production, and access to doses of coronavirus vaccines. The Foreign Minister also said that one of the objectives of access to the pathogen is to distribute two billion vaccines among 77 countries and that the vaccine will arrive on time in his country.
According to the Mexican foreign ministry, Wang Yi said that the vaccine developed in China “will be a public good of universal access and that his country will provide a one billion dollar loan to support the access of the nations of the region.”
Ultimately, it’s all about perspective. Some will say that this loan from China will be a good thing for Latin America and the Caribbean, but you have to read the fine print of the agreement and compare it with the available background: what happened to the countries that borrowed from China’s regime, such as Venezuela and the African countries? They ended up at the mercy of the Asian country. This may be the first step for Latin America to highlight the influence of the CCP.