“The Chinese don’t say, ‘We want to take over Latin America,’ but they clearly set out a multidimensional engagement strategy, which, if successful, would significantly expand their leverage and produce enormous intelligence concerns for the United States,” U.S. Army War College research professor Evan Ellis, former member of the State Department policy planning staff, told the Washington Examiner.
Chinese officials outlined their ambitions following a summit with the Latin American and Caribbean States Community. This intergovernmental forum was launched in 2011 under the auspices of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who sought a venue to rival the Organization of American States and challenge U.S. influence in Latin America. It now stands to furnish Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping with a platform to gather a coalition of Leftist and authoritarian leaders congenial to Beijing’s interests.
WATCH: BILL MAHER GUEST: MAGA IS "ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM"
“The Chinese Communist Party and government are actively looking to strengthen their ties throughout the Western Hemisphere, in particular with anti-American elements,” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a senior Senate Intelligence Select Committee Republican, conveyed in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Beijing is seeking to surpass the United States in every sector, and we must take this threat seriously.”
WATCH: RFK JR. TALKS ABOUT ELON RELEASING TWITTER FILES REVEALING COLLUSION
China’s exploitation of ideological fault lines in Latin America was thrown into sharp relief earlier this month, when Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, just weeks after the OAS General Assembly rebuked him for overseeing elections that “were not free, fair, or transparent and have no democratic legitimacy,” opted to close the Taiwanese Embassy in favor of a new relationship with Beijing.
POLITICAL CORRUPTION TRIAL TAKES BIZARRE TURN: MENENDEZ ENLISTS EXPERT LINKED TO CHILD MURDER CASE
“The Ortega-Murillo regime has announced it has severed diplomatic relations and ended official contact with Taiwan, but the sham election on Nov. 7 did not provide it with any mandate to remove Nicaragua from the family of American democracies,” State Department spokesman Ned Price vowed Dec. 9th. “Without the mandate that comes with a free and fair election, Ortega's actions cannot reflect the will of the Nicaraguan people, who continue to struggle for democracy and the ability to exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
CALIFORNIA'S NEW 'GENEALOGY OFFICE' TO HAND OUT CHECKS BASED ON DNA RESULTS
Rubio, who also heads the GOP side of the Senate foreign relations subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere, was unsatisfied with that response and President Joe Biden’s broader approach to Latin America.
“The Ortega-Murillo regime sees the CCP as a better ideological ally than the U.S. because Ortega’s long list of crimes and human rights violations are of no concern to the genocidal regime in Beijing,” he wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday.
POLITICAL GENIUS OR DESPERATE MOVE? EX-REP. SANTOS REVEALS MASTER PLAN
"There are absolutely ambitions for China to become the dominant influence in Latin America,” Haydar added. “The challenge is comprehensive, and there's absolutely a security and military interest there. ... That threat is growing, and it’s a different kind of threat than what we saw with the Soviet threat.”
Discover alternative ideas that will make you think
Engage in mind bending debate
Earn points, rise in rank, have fun
