On Tuesday China’s state-run propaganda newspaper Global Times mocked the allegedly “awkward situation” President Joe Biden will encounter in this week’s Summit of the Americas, claiming that leftists in Latin America tanked the event to show “Latin America is not a ‘backyard’ of the U.S.”
The Global Times‘ comments followed a rant by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Monday in which he demanded America offer “due respect” and “humility” to its Latin American neighbors by inviting rogue regimes Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to the event.
The Summit of the Americas is an event bringing together the heads of state of the countries in the Organization of American States (OAS). The OAS Charter clearly states that the objective of the coalition is to promote democracy and free societies. The Global Times further highlighted that an OAS rule is in place banning dictatorships from participating in the Summit of the Americas.
Biden’s administration announced last week it would not invite Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime nor the illegal socialist dictatorship of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro to the Summit, hosted in Los Angeles, but never issued a final decision regarding Cuba. As a formal invite never went out to the Castro regime, by Monday it became clear that Cuba would not be invited. The Biden administration waited to abstain from making a public decision on the matter until puppet dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel whined that he would not come even if invited.
Several leftist leaders in the region threatened to boycott the event in defense of the Castro regime. Ultimately, however, only one kept his word: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who explained in a rant on Monday that he would not attend in protest of the “genocide” allegedly perpetrated by “the Cuban community in Florida” against Cubans on the island.
“They say ‘human rights are violated in Cuba, human rights are violated in Guatemala, human rights are violated in I-don’t-know-where.’ So what?” López Obrador added.
In its article on Tuesday, the Global Times made López Obrador’s boycott – tempered by the presence of his top diplomat, Marcelo Ebrard, at the event – appear to be a larger pan-Latin American rejection of the event.
“Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he would not attend unless all governments in the Americas are invited, whatever their political stripes,” the Global Times claimed. “The leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, and several Caribbean states have also declared that they won’t go for the same reason, and will instead send lower-profile delegations.”
This claim is false: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Argentine President Alberto Fernández will be attending the event, and Bolsonaro is an anti-communist conservative who never expressed any intention of supporting Cuba’s and Venezuela’s interests at the event. Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei is not attending, but his government clarified that he would not do so due to scheduling, not as a statement in favor of leftist dictatorships.
“Chinese analysts said this [the alleged boycotts] proves that Latin America is not a ‘backyard’ of the US,” the Global Times nonetheless confidently concluded, “and compared to the last time the U.S. held such summit in 1994, declining US hegemony today means Washington is unable to prevent the continent from seeking autonomy and development based on Latin American countries’ own interests.”
The state newspaper added that Latin Americans universally “have bad memories of US hegemony, as Washington has directly or indirectly supported drug trafficking, arms sales and corruption in many countries in the region,” and that “China will surely be more welcomed in the region.”
The Global Times omitted polling data showing growing numbers of Latin Americans within the United States voting for conservative candidates and entering politics as conservatives in the Republican Party, largely fueled by a rejection of the governments in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, among others.
Spokesman Zhao Lijian had similarly attempted to insert China into the Summit of the Americas invite conversation on Monday, claiming that disinviting the region’s dictatorships from the Summit, as OAS rules require, “has been widely questioned and resisted by Latin American and Caribbean countries.”
“It shows that the US will not find support when it clings to the Monroe Doctrine and interferes in other countries’ affairs or create division in the name of democracy,” Zhao said. “Putting itself above and bullying other countries for the selfish interests of the US will not be well-received.”
“The US, as the host of the upcoming summit, needs to stop going its own way or forcing its will on others. It should instead show due respect for Latin American and Caribbean countries and listen with humility to the legitimate concerns and voices for justice of the majority of regional countries,” Zhao concluded.
China has no legitimate territories in Latin America, though it regularly violates the maritime sovereignty of states like Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina with illegal fishing. It has invested heavily, however, in strengthening ties with leftist regimes in the area, which especially paid off when socialist former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, now the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, absolved China of its genocide of the Uyghur people in East Turkistan last week.
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