APEC summit catapults Peru into China’s mainstream news

Peru, China cooperation has bilateral benefits

LIMA, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — Peru and China have enjoyed friendly relations which allow the development of business opportunities for both sides, Peruvian Prime Minister Salomon Lerner told Xinhua on Friday.

Xinhua News - CN President Hu Jintao with PE President Ollanta Humala

Lerner also confirmed that the Peruvian government doesn’t have intention to review or modify the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed between Peru and China, which came into force since 2010.

The 5th China-Latin America Business Summit will be held in Lima on Nov. 21 and 22. In this framework, Lerner said Peru offers “a series of possibilities of investment” and cooperation in many fields.

“I reassert the invitation to the Chinese companies to explore possibilities of association with Peruvian companies,” he added.

Click here to read the full article direct from Xinhua News

Leaders of China, Peru seek new cooperation

HONOLULU – Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Peruvian President Ollanta Humala on Friday, with both sides urging deeper economic cooperation.

Humala also called for more Chinese firms to invest in Peru.

The duo met on the sideline of the 19th Economic Leaders’ Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

During the meeting, Hu said Sino-Peruvian ties are at a strategic high, and he pledged the two sides would sustain high-level communication on matters of mutual concern

Click here to read the full article direct from The China Daily

Chinese president calls for stronger ties with Peru

HONOLULU, United States, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Hu Jintao met with his Peruvian counterpart Ollanta Humala Tasso here Friday, and the two pledged to work together to further advance the strategic partnership between the two countries.

The two are in Hawaii to attend the 19th Economic Leaders’ Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

Noting that both China and Peru are important developing countries in the Pacific Rim, Hu said China always treats and handles its relations with Peru from a strategic height. He put forward a four-point proposal to further boost bilateral ties.

Click here to read the full article direct from Xinhua News

South Park – The Last of the Meheecans

Img: Courtesy of Comedy Central (Viacom)

Reality? No… but no less entertaining and ripe with “subtle messages.”  I also recall reading in roughly late Aug/ early Sept a headline scroll on the bottom of Boomberg TV — “Mexicans buy back Texas, flock to real estate markets as housing prices drop and the Mexican Peso continues to appreciates.”

If you like satire mixed with crude, over-top humor about current events… particularly US Domestic Immigration Policy and the state of the US Economy, definitely check out this link to the latest episode of South Park.

Documental incredible de los paises – BRIC

Documental incredible de los paises – BRIC-episodio-1

Del canal Argentino – Infinito

China / India/ Russa (ASIA) – Latin America News Feast with a dash of US for dessert

My daily news radar (online subscriptions / searches) for all that is China – South America went off like wild fire today. Here’s some articles worthy giving a read.

Article 1: Russia Lends Venezuela $4 Billion in Return for Oil Projects - By Daniel Cancel of Bloomberg News

Russia agreed to lend Venezuela $4 billion through 2013 for defense spending in return for gaining access to heavy crude and offshore gas fields in the South American country.

Russia’s OAO Rosneft and OAO Gazprom signed a cooperation accord with Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA late yesterday at a ceremony in Caracas led by President Hugo Chavez and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.

“We’re working on large-dimension projects from oil, gas and petrochemicals to finance, banking and trade,” Chavez said on state television.

Click here to read the full article direct from the Bloomberg

Article 2 = China’s JAC Motors to build plant in Brazil - By Vivian Pereira and Brad Haynes of Reuters News

To Note:
* 80 pct of capital will come from local SHC Group
* Government driving up the cost of imported carsBy Vivian

Pereira and Brad HaynesSAO PAULO, Oct 7 (Reuters) – The Brazilian operator of China’s JAC Motors brand announced a 900-million-real ($510 million) investment to build a factory producing affordable cars in the world’s No. 4 auto market.

JAC Motors will provide 20 percent of the capital, with the rest coming from the local SHC Group run by businessman Sergio Habib, SHC said in a statement on Friday.

The plant in Bahia state, expected to produce 100,000 vehicles annually beginning in 2014, will be the second producing Chinese-branded cars in Latin America’s largest economy, where authorities are pushing up the cost of imported cars.

Click here to read the full article direct from the Reuters News

Article 3: Friction between China & Bolivia

Bolivian energy minister alleges deception by Jindal Steel in big iron ore mining deal, courtesy of the Associated Press via the Washington Post

LA PAZ, Bolivia — A senior Bolivian official is threatening to end the government’s contract with India’s Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. over its alleged failure to meet investment commitments in a huge iron ore mine.

Energy Minister Jose Luis Gutierrez says Jindal deceived Bolivia in failing to honor its end of the biggest mining investment of President Evo Morales’ nearly six-year tenure.

Click here to read the full article direct from the Associated Press via the Washington Post

Article 4 = Ecuador firm wants to sell rice in the name of Gandhi - By Maneesh Chhibber of the IndianExpress.com

An Ecuador-based company has attempted to use the name and photograph of Mahatma Gandhi for marketing its rice. But an Indian lawyer has challenged the move before the Trademark Office of Ecuador. The case is scheduled to come up for hearing tomorrow.

According to Lalit Bhasin, who is also president of the Society of Indian Law Firms, the owner of the Ecuadorian company, Valverde Munoz, applied for grant of trademark for the name and label of “Arroz Gandhi” (Arroz means rice).

Click here to read the full article direct from IndianExpress.com

Article 5: Mitt Romney on Mexico, China and defense – By Dr. James M. Lindsay and courtesy of CNN News

Dr. James M. Lindsay you would think knows about the topic, as CNN makes a special point to note — Dr. James M. Lindsay is a Senior Vice President at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-author of America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, and whom writes his own blog, which you can access by clicking here.

By James M. Lindsay, CFR.org

Mitt Romney has taken exception to Rick Perry’s comment over the weekend that he would consider sending American troops into Mexico to help end the drug war raging there. Romney told the New Hampshire Union Leader that Perry’s suggestion is “a bad idea:”

Let’s build a fence first, and let’s have sufficient border patrol agents to protect it. And if the Mexican government wants us to help it with logistics, intelligence, satellite images, I’m sure we can provide the sort of support we provided in Colombia.

You can expect to hear more about Mexico at next Tuesday’s GOP debate. If Romney makes the Colombia comparison again, he probably should explain what the United States did there. Most people don’t know.

Click here to read the full article direct from CNN

Commentary: U.S. needs bigger thinking on Latin America

ANDRES OPPENHEIMER of the Miami Herald and CNN Español discusses US Foreign Policy towards Latin America

Note the author of this blog (me) does not always agree with what Mr. Oppenheimer says, but his article no less merits a quick read.  Some major points which any reader giving this a quick skim should note –>

1/ The Obama Administration has left the post of Head Latin American affairs vacant for 5 months.  So much for making good on promises back in 2008 to forge closer ties with the region… Big disappointment here, but not any worse or better than the disappointment / let down his predecessor Bush Jr also produced.  It seems the last President to care at all about the region was Clinton who did more than organize summits… He laid the foundation for FTA’s with countries in the region via NAFTA

2/ Obama did not visit Brazil, the growing powerhouse and member of the BRIC club until 3 years into his presidency. When he did visit, he received nothing but criticism for going through with the official visit between the heads of state of the Western Hemisphere’s two largest economies… because the visit happened to coincide with start of Western Military efforts in Libya. For the US media which pointed the finger at Obama, shame on you, the President does not physically need to be in the United States to be “Commander and Chief,” especially for an internationally organized, and initially French lead military mission.  For Obama, shame on you too! It took you three years to visit Brazil!  I think for Brazilians this is an obvious insult, but even for the rest of South America (and Latin America as a whole), Obama, Bush Jr. and the United States… well… Latin America is feeling a bit as if they are being ignored.  One thing is certain – China is not ignoring Latin America, nor is India, Russia or even small players like Singapore which is investing to expand the Panama Canal.  

3/ As Ray Walser,  Senior Policy Analyst for Latin America at The Heritage Foundation very appropriately points in a 2009 publication “U.S Policy toward Latin America in 2009 and Beyond”  From 1996 to 2006, total U.S. merchandise trade with Latin America grew by 139percent, compared to 96 percent for Asia and 95 percent for the European Union. In 2006, the U.S. exported $223 billion worth of goods to Latin American consumers(compared with $55 billion to China). Fifty-one percent of U.S. energy imports originate from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil.

Excerpt from Oppenheimer’s article –>

U.S. diplomatic ties with Latin America, which have been in limbo for months, got a small boost last week when President Barack Obama nominated Roberta Jacobson as top State Department official in charge of Latin American affairs. But that alone will not do much to revert the gradual loss of U.S. clout in the region.

Granted, the career diplomat gets high marks from almost everybody in Washington’s small world of Latin American affairs specialists. Unlike her predecessor Arturo Valenzuela, a political appointee whose nomination in 2009 was blocked for several months by Conservative republicans, the Senate is expected to easily confirm her nomination.

Among the most urgent issues Jacobson would have to deal with would be the long-stalled U.S. ratification of the free trade deals with Colombia and Panama, the escalating violence in Mexico, and the April 2012, 34-country Summit of the Americas in Colombia.

On a wider spectrum, she would have to find new ways to improve ties with the region at a time when China has eclipsed much of the previous U.S. economic influence in South America’s commodity producing countries.

Click here to read Oppenheimer’s full article via the Kansas City Star

Global gloom places Latin America on alert – Financial Times

Interesting article written by John Paul Rathbone, Latin America editor of the Financial Times.

Every day Luis Castilla, Peru’s finance minister, says he lights a candle and “prays that China won’t crash”.

His prayers are echoed by many in a region that remains one of the world economy’s few bright spots. South America’s commodity-rich economies grew 5 per cent in the first half of this year. Last year, these new motors of the world economy added half a percentage point to global output.

But slowing Asian demand and plunging commodity prices have raised the spectre that South America, having largely escaped the 2008-09 Great Recession, may not be so lucky this time around.

Main point = Potential new financial crisis in the “Developed World” + slow down in China = Scared Latinos

Click here to read the full article direct from the Financial Times

ECLAC Sees Favorable Conditions for L.America-China Relations

The current economic and trade conditions in the Latin American and Caribbean region are highly favorable to furthering its trade and investment relations with China and the Asia-Pacific, a UN official said Friday.

“China has become a strategic trade partner for Latin America and the Caribbean, and there are many opportunities to achieve export and investment agreements in fields such as mining, engineering, agriculture, infrastructure, science and technology,” said Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean (ECLAC).

Barcena made the remarks while presenting a report titled “The People’s Republic of China and Latin America and the Caribbean: Towards a new phase in the economic and trade link” to mark Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to the region.

The report says China is the main destination of Brazilian and Chilean exports and the second largest for Costa Rica, Cuba, Peru and Venezuela, but the region’s export basket to China remains centered on raw materials.

“It is possible and necessary to advance on trade diversification, the creation of a trade alliance between the Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, and to increase investment between both parties and enhance cooperation in innovation, education, science and technology,” Barcena said.

Click here to read the full article direct from http://english.cri.cn

Real picture of Sino-Latin America ties [China Daily US Edition]

The author is deputy editor of China Daily US edition. He can be reached at chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn

The Western media continually criticizes China’s role in Latin America as being “neocolonial” and claims it has an “insatiable demand for commodities”, so I was keen to observe the people’s attitude toward China during my trip to the region recently.

Judging from the enthusiasm for China displayed by government officials, businessmen, academics and ordinary people in Chile, the picture presented by the Western media has been seriously distorted.

At the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, chiefs and experts attributed the fast trade and investment growth from China as a key factor for Latin America not only surviving, but thriving during the global financial crisis.

The same message was heard from top Chilean officials at the 5th annual meeting of the Chile China Business Council, which drew some 500 government officials and business people.

It is true that commodities are an important part of the trade between China and Latin America. However, that trade benefits not only China, but also Latin America and the rest of the world.

By being the world’s manufacturing workshop, China has paid a high environmental cost. Just half a century ago, that job was done in most of today’s developed countries when they were the global manufacturing center.

Many developed countries have an insatiable demand for China’s rare earth and, of course, the country’s cheap labor. But this never seems to bother the Western media.

In fact, China and Latin America are quickly diversifying and elevating their trade and investment as witnessed by the host of agreements signed by China and Cuba, Uruguay and Chile in the past few days.

China has already become Chile’s largest trade partner. Chinese businesses are increasing their presence in the South America country. The billboards on Santiago streets by automaker BYD and appliance firm Haier, and the Chinese businessmen who do trade, operate malls and run convenience stores are proof of China’s presence.

Both countries share a priority in development. Chile aspires to become a developed country and China wants to become a xiaokang (well-off ) society.

Chilean President Sabastian Pinera made constant reminders that the two countries are very close despite the geographical distance between them.

The mood among the ordinary people I met in Chile was also favorable to China. I have never heard the word “Welcome” as often as I did in Chile. Ordinary Chileans I met in cafes, museums, parks in Santiago and Pablo Neruda’s colorful and hilly neighborhood in historic Valparaiso greeted me with “Welcome to Chile”.

What Pinera said was true. China and Chile are very close. In South America, Chile was the first country to recognize China’s market economy status, the first to sign a free trade agreement with China, the first to establish diplomatic ties with China and the first to support China’s WTO accession.

Of course, China and Latin American countries, all belong to the developing world and are going to compete with each other. But we all know that competition is a good thing and there is no need to distort the picture simply because of competition.

Latin American nations are independent countries and they are no one’s backyard. For China and Chile, they are really neighbor countries separated only by the Pacific. You can literally fly from Beijing to Santiago without passing over any other country.

China-Brazil; a clash of cultures

Celio Lin, 29, sat by the cash register of his family’s busy Chinese restaurant complaining about the Brazilian staff, while his mother checked on the line cooks by tugging on their coats and attentively peeking into pots of soup and noodles.

Img: Courtesy of Wikicommons

“Brazilians want vacations for I-don’t-know-what, they want a day off for I-don’t-know-what, they want to go to the beach, to relax,” Lin said. “The beach is obviously pleasant, but if you send a Chinese man to the beach, he’ll go there to sell something!”

A tip of my hat to AP’s Sao Paulo office for writing a very interesting piece on the on-going process of Chinese and Brazilians learning how to do business with one another.

The article does a great job of highlighting the major differences in the expectations of workers, managers, and executives from both Chinese and Brazilian companies operating in one another economy.

More than 2 years after your author personally embarked on his journey to learn Chinese, build bridges between China and South America, I can personally attest that many of the observations in this article are true… but I stop short of painting such a negative picture as the article does — almost suggesting it is impossible for the two cultures to begin to learn how to work together more efficiently and understand one another.

Here’s an excerpt from AP’s article. You can click here, or the link at the end of the excerpt to read the article in its entirety direct from AP News.

Culture clash complicates China’s Brazil push
(AP) – 13 hours ago

SAO PAULO (AP) — Stocking shelves in a Chinese grocery store, Thiago warned that he didn’t want to be caught chatting during working hours. Within seconds, however, the Brazilian unleashed a pent-up flood of complaints about the owners, who lingered just beyond hearing distance.

“My bosses have never heard of a day off,” said the 20-year-old, who would only allow his first name to be used, for fear of losing his job. “Vacations? Forget it. They pay well and they pay for extra hours, but they don’t understand that some things are more important to Brazilians than money.

“I’ve seen many workers walk in, see the Chinese way of doing things, and quit the very same day.”

Such cross-cultural tensions have become a stumbling block in an otherwise meteoric rise in business ties between China and Brazil, two of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Chinese companies’ direct investment in Brazil jumped to $17 billion last year, nearly 60 times the investment the previous year, according to SOBEET, a Brazilian economic think tank. At the same time, more Chinese companies are hiring local workers rather than following their old practices of bringing in Chinese laborers.

Click here to read the full article, direct from AP

China Latin America Trade Jumps in 2010

Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Hu Jintao in China last month can celebrate rising two-way trade. (Photo: Roberto Stuckert Filho/PR)

China’s trade with Latin America is growing twice as fast as U.S. trade with the region.

BY RUTH MORRIS of the The Latin American Business Chronicle

SHANGHAI — China’s dragon breathed fire into Latin America in 2010, as trade between the two sides shot up by a spectacular 51.2 percent, to $178.6 billion, and memories of the economic recession melted away.

China’s trade with Latin America is growing at nearly twice the level of US trade with the region. It also is significantly higher than the 31 percent increase in trade between the European Union and Latin America last year.

Click here to read more direct from the Latin American Business Chronicle