Few parts of the world have benefited as much from China’s rise as Latin America. In 1990, China was a lowly 17th on the list of destinations for Latin American exports. By 2011, it had become the number one export market for Brazil, Chile and Peru and number two for Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay, Colombia and Venezuela. Over that time, annual trade rose from an unremarkable $8bn to an irreplaceable $230bn. Chinese leaders predict it will reach $400bn by 2017.
As China builds its colossal cities, constructs its networks of highways and railways, and feeds its evermore carnivorous people, Latin America has much of what it takes to keep the show on the road. Chilean copper, Peruvian zinc and Brazilian iron ore are being shipped in vast quantities. The region is the Middle East of food, accounting for 40 per cent of global farming exports. It supplies water-poor China with dizzying amounts of beef, poultry, soya, corn, coffee and animal feed. If Chatinamerica rolled off the tongue as easily as Chindia or Chindonesia, someone would have coined the term long ago.
The speed with which economic relations have flourished raises two important questions equally applicable to other parts of the world. First, what happens when Chinese growth and investment slows, a process that has already begun? Second, how can Latin America forge an economic relationship that is more than just a rerun of its commodity dependency of eras past?