Shifting Gears: Chinese Finance in LAC, 2020
China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China issued no new finance to Latin American and Caribbean governments or state-run companies in 2020.
Margaret Myers
United States | Director, Asia & Latin America Program, Inter-American Dialogue
This post is also available in: Spanish
Margaret Myers is the director of the Asia & Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. She established the Dialogue’s China and Latin America Working Group in 2011 to examine China’s growing presence in Latin America and the Caribbean. Myers also developed the China-Latin America Finance Database, the only publicly available source of empirical data on Chinese state lending in Latin America, in cooperation with Global China Initiative at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center.
In addition to maintaining the Dialogue’s China and Latin America and 美洲对话 blogs, Myers has published numerous articles on Chinese leadership dynamics, international capital flows, Chinese agricultural policy, and Asia-Latin America relations, among other topics. The Political Economy of China-Latin America Relations and The Changing Currents of Trans-Pacific Integration: China, the TPP, and Beyond, her co-edited volumes with Dr. Carol Wise and Dr. Adrian Hearn, respectively, were published in 2016. Myers has testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on the China-Latin America relationship and is regularly featured in major domestic and international media, including the Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, El Comercio, Folha de São Paulo, CNN en Español, CCTV, and Voice of America. In 2018, she was identified by Global Americans as part of the “new generation of public intellectuals.”
Before arriving at the Dialogue, Myers worked as a Latin America analyst and China analyst for the US Department of Defense, during which time she was deployed with the US Navy in support of Partnership of the Americas. Myers also worked as a senior China analyst for Science Applications International Corporation, a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank, a faculty member at Georgetown University, and for Fauquier County Schools, where she developed the county’s first Mandarin language program. Myers received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and conducted her graduate work at The George Washington University, Zhejiang University of Technology, and the Johns Hopkins University/Nanjing University Center for Chinese-American Studies. Myers is a Council on Foreign Relations term member. She was the recipient of a Freeman fellowship for China studies and a Fulbright Specialist grant to research China-Colombia relations in Bogotá.
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Press Mentions See all
Los bancos chinos entraron en la región proporcionando financiamiento a los gobiernos en un esfuerzo por ayudar a las empresas chinas a establecer una huella porque no tenían reputación. Y con el tiempo, estas empresas han operado en varios sectores y han establecido su propio tipo de relaciones.
With the [Latin American] region facing unprecedented challenges, China is unlikely to lend any more for now, instead it has to grapple with its own problematic portfolio.