Forging peace and cooperation in LAC region

The Chinese No 1 Central Document released on Tuesday stresses the importance of aligning agricultural trade and production, advocating for diversified agricultural imports and supporting the expansion of the export of specialized agricultural products. This proposal not only aligns with China's broader goals for economic modernization but can also play a critical role in strengthening the economic relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean.

The end of the first quarter-century marks the conclusion of China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), one of the key stages in the country's modernization strategy. This period finds China in the midst of consolidating its development, more resilient to internal and external turbulence, and strengthened and flexible in the face of future challenges.

China has demonstrated to the world that, with a serious, prudent, and responsible planning system, it is possible to achieve any goal a country set for itself. Seventy years have passed since the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57) — seven decades of achievements.

After the world's turbulent decade, the recommendations for the new plan envision a more complex, unpredictable, and highly competitive world, especially in technology, for the next five years.

So, what should Latin America and the Caribbean expect in the next decade? The answer is greater cooperation from China. In a document published by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on China's policy paper toward Latin America and the Caribbean in Dec 2025, five interrelated programs were established with the purpose of strengthening China's ties with LAC in all fields, in direct accordance with one of the strategic pillars of the recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) — greater engagement in the Global South — particularly highlighting the Belt and Road Initiative, which involves several LAC countries and is primarily realized through the Shanghai-Chancay maritime connection.

However, almost simultaneously, the United States administration published the US National Security Strategy, which is global in scope, unlike China's policy, which is focused exclusively on the LAC countries. The document, released in December, refocuses US security and development concerns on the Western Hemisphere. In a clear allusion to China, it outlines a strategy to recover US influence in the region — a new "Monroe Doctrine" — through alliances for development and resource exploitation, among other actions.

The Ibero-American geopolitical landscape appears unpredictable, highly complex, and competitive. On the one hand, China has tangibly increased its cooperation with the region, both in quantity and quality, and prioritizes the LAC in this endeavor — many megaprojects are in various stages of implementation — and increased cooperation is expected in diverse sectors such as industry, energy, communications, agriculture, tourism, science and technology.

On the other hand, Washington's NSS, in its focus on the Western Hemisphere, seeks to strengthen alliances, secure supply chains, and restore US preeminence in the region, which will thus become a space of strategic competition, economic opportunities, geopolitical tensions, sovereignty and security issues, as well as realignments.

In the region, China has comprehensive strategic partnership agreements with countries such as Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Chile. The overarching theme is shared development under a win-win strategy. At the same time, the US has signed Free Trade Agreements with Central American economies, including Colombia, Chile and Peru. Clearly, competition between China and the US in the region is not new, but it will intensify in the medium term.

Furthermore, on the issue of security, the US government has proposed that Peru be declared a major non-NATO ally, a status already held by Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. The proposal might be approved by the US Senate.

Therefore, it is likely that LAC countries' relations with the two major countries might get exacerbated. But it is also possible that Beijing and Washington, with the former offering shared development and the latter pursuing the new "Monroe Doctrine", will find common ground in their national interests in the region.

If so, the LAC will have the privilege of being the fertile ground from which a new era of peace, development and security will emerge, leading to a better quality of life for its inhabitants — and providing a paradigmatic space for other regions of the world that benefits all of humanity.

The author is professor emeritus at the Center for Higher National Studies of Peru and member of the Peruvian Association of International Studies (APEI).

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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