The challenges of the New Silk Road for Latin America:

between autonomy and dependency

Abstract

The complexity of the international relations board has undergone significant changes in the last century. The initiative promoted by China since 2013 known as the “Belt and Road Initiative” (IFR), or as the “Century Project”, has the potential to change the world’s economic and strategic geography, re-orienting it toward the Pacific, centered in the East.

In the case of Latin America, it is reflected in a strong amount of investment in infrastructure, directing trade toward a reprimanization of regional economies. Seven years after the official launch of this project opens the question of whether the new financial structures and institutions created by China will be geared toward deepening the so-called Beijing Consensus. And what are the risks and challenges of the new Silk Road for Latin America.

The aim of this paper is to analyze geopolitically, from a Latin American perspective, what are the implications of the New Silk Road for the region, posing the challenge of being inserted into the Chinese plan, the opportunities it generates in terms of development and what are the margins of autonomy. For this, for methodological purposes, the work is focused on three aspects: (A) the general and strategic guidelines of the New Silk Road; b) the meaning and scope for the region; and c) and the challenge between opportunities and autonomy that the region poses to the BRI.