On four-wheel drive

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of the China-CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum. Ten years ago, China and CELAC jointly announced the establishment of this cross-regional cooperation platform in Beijing, heralding a new era in China-LAC relations as they transitioned from bilateral interaction to overall cooperation. Over the past decade, the China-CELAC Forum has been propelled by innovative mechanisms and strengthened through pragmatic cooperation. With the convening of the fourth ministerial meeting in Beijing this month, China-LAC relations will usher in a new golden decade, not only continuing to strengthen Sino-LAC overall cooperation, but also expanding the collective voice of the Global South in global governance reform.

Under the framework of the China-CELAC Forum, continuous progress has been made in their economy and trade cooperation. A decade ago, China set forth an ambitious goal of achieving a trade volume of $500 billion and a direct investment stock of $250 billion with Latin America within 10 years. Ten years have passed, and China-Latin America economic and trade cooperation has achieved remarkable results. In 2024, the bilateral trade volume reached $518.5 billion, and as of the end of 2023, China's direct investment stock in Latin America had reached $600.8 billion, positioning Latin America as the second-largest destination for China's overseas investments.

In addition, the overall cooperation between China and Latin America goes contrary to the traditional North-South model, providing a new paradigm for global governance based on equal participation, technology sharing and joint rule-making. From clean energy networks to the Digital Silk Road, from anti-pandemic cooperation to debt relief, both sides are demonstrating through concrete actions that developing countries can promote the international order to evolve in a more just and inclusive direction through solidarity and collaboration.

The sustained progress of overall cooperation between China and Latin America can be attributed to the "four-wheel drive" mechanisms of the China-CELAC Forum, which encompass ministerial meetings, dialogues of foreign ministers of China and the Quartet of CELAC, meetings of national coordinators, and conferences in various professional fields. Currently, 43 sub-forums covering various specialized fields have been established and are actively operating within the framework of the China-CELAC Forum. These include areas such as agricultural production, scientific and technological innovation, poverty alleviation and prosperity, green development, disaster management, defense cooperation, think tank exchanges, and anti-corruption coordination, among others.

In the past decade, the China-CELAC Forum has experienced continuous growth in response to various challenges, including the slow pace of integration development in Latin America, the shifts in the regional political pattern, the transformations in economic cooperation models, the actions of the United States to discredit and undermine the Sino-LAC cooperation, and the reform of the global governance system. However, these challenges have created opportunities for China and Latin America to pursue innovative mechanisms, foster independent advancements, explore new areas of collaboration, and strengthen their influence in shaping global governance rules.

In the next decade, the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation will bring new impetus and opportunities to the overall cooperation between China and Latin America. At the same time, the continuously improving mechanism of the China-CELAC Forum will also serve as an important platform for achieving leading technological cooperation in areas such as artificial intelligence and new energy. China and Latin America will not only promote the digital transformation of traditional industries, but also strengthen digital infrastructure, digital governance, and digital cultural and artistic exchanges. In addition, both sides will conduct digital talent training courses and explore the establishment of a dialogue mechanism for e-commerce cooperation.

Standing at a new starting point, we can anticipate that more participants, such as technological innovation-based enterprises, think tanks, social groups and young entrepreneurs, will become deeply integrated into the platform of the China-CELAC Forum. The forum will also strengthen cooperation with regional organizations such as the Latin American Parliament, the Central American Parliament, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Development Bank of Latin America, with the aim of jointly building an open, inclusive and comprehensive Sino-LAC cooperation network. Furthermore, the forum will enhance collaboration and exchange with other cross-regional platforms, such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China-ASEAN cooperation, and the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, among others, thereby contributing to global peace and stability through the wisdom and strength of the Global South.

Ten years ago, the establishment of the China-CELAC Forum was met with skepticism, often dismissed as mere "political showboating" or derided as an "empty shell".However, in view of the fruitful achievements of its first decade and envisioning a grand blueprint for the second, this cross-Pacific overall cooperation mechanism has demonstrated that when the largest developing country join hands with a region with great development potential, they can not only reshape their own developmental trajectories but also provide the world with a new model of international relations that diverges from traditional hegemony and unilateralism.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping said in the congratulatory letter to the ninth CELAC Summit, China-Latin America relations have withstood the test of international turbulence and entered a new stage marked by equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and tangible benefits for the people. As the world undergoes profound changes unseen in a century, this newly elevated stage of China-Latin America overall cooperation is poised to inject significant momentum into the efforts aimed at building a community with a shared future for mankind.

The author is an associate professor at the Institute of International and Regional Studies and a researcher at the Center for Latin American Studies at Sun Yat-sen University. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.