China’s Belt and Road Initiative: What Role for Latin America?
Chinese-built infrastructure can indeed be a boon for Latin America, but making this happen will require no shortage of strategic thinking on the part of policymakers.
Margaret Myers
United States | Program Director, Asia & Latin America
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 Boston University’s Global Economic Governance Initiative (GEGI).
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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[Más allá de la Franja y la Ruta,] los riesgos surgen cuando se negocian acuerdos reales, por ejemplo el tren Panamá - David, una refinería en una isla... Ahí es cuando se necesita que los países latinoamericanos tengan la capacidad técnica para negociar con los chinos acuerdos que sean de verdad mutuamente beneficiosos. [Ese] es el desafío.
[Las autoridades chinas] tenían ciertas esperanzas de que, sea a través de consultas con el Gobierno venezolano o bien mediante la financiación de producción petrolera, podrían ayudar a resolver la situación en el país o al menos mantener el statu quo. Sin embargo, no ha sido el caso. Desde 2016 y especialmente 2017, se han dado cuenta de que la mejor opción es simplemente esperar y ver cómo se resuelve la situación.