Latin America Drifts East -- Evo Morales Stakes Bolivia's Future on China

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina--Evo Morales, a former coca farmer and Aymara Indian, is hoping Chinese capital will help him develop Bolivia's natural gas resources, which he has vowed to exploit for the benefit of the country's poor indigenous majority. In one of his first actions as Bolivia's president-elect, Morales skipped the United States and scheduled a two-day visit to Beijing.

To Latin American analysts, Morales's choice of China as he angles for investment is the latest evidence of a trend: The region, once firmly in the U.S. sphere of influence, is slowly but surely drifting East.

Andrés Oppenheimer, hemispheric affairs columnist for the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, writes that 2005 will go down in history as "the year in which the United States lost much of its once almighty influence in Latin America, and (China) began to play a modest but rapidly growing role in hemispheric affairs."

Charles Shapiro, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Andean Region, told a congressional committee that "China is an important new investor in the region as it searches for resources." He said China's imports from Latin America ($22 billion worth in 2004) are growing, increasing 16 percent in the first half of 2005 alone.

It may be too early to say that China is threatening to supplant U.S. influence in a region that Washington, D.C., has long treated as its own bailiwick. But as China's star rises, Latin America is increasingly looking to Beijing for guidance and investments.

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