Peru's Ciancay Port: a new gateway from South America to Asia and a new battlefield for Sino-American game

According to the Wall Street Journal, Peru's Chankai port is nearing completion, which will become an important trade bridge between South America and Asia, significantly boosting trade between China and Peru, Brazil and other regional countries. The move not only marks an important advance in China's infrastructure construction in Latin America, but also has aroused great concern and concern in the United States, which is regarded as a direct challenge to its strategic interests. In response, the Peruvian government has adopted a balancing act. While ensuring that China has exclusive long-term rights to operate the Chinese-controlled Chankai port, the Peruvian government is also actively inviting U.S. investors to develop other port projects. The Peruvian government is also actively inviting U.S. investors to participate in the development of other port projects to balance China's growing influence in South American maritime trade, and Peru's balancing strategy has made it a new battleground in the Sino-U.S. game.

Although China's contact with Latin America started late, the cooperation between the two sides has developed rapidly, especially in the economic field. Under the guidance of development diplomacy, China and Latin America focus on building a community of shared future through economic cooperation. China has become the second largest trading partner of Latin America, and bilateral cooperation in oil, minerals, ports, communications, electricity, agriculture and other fields has begun to take shape. Such cooperation has brought necessary capital, technology and market to Latin American countries, and at the same time provided important resources and opportunities for China's development. Notably, China's trade links with several major Latin American countries now exceed those of the United States. In addition, China has been expanding its OFDI (foreign direct investment) in Latin America, and this investment has been mainly concentrated in the energy and mineral sectors to the manufacturing sector. This transformation will help promote the industrial upgrading and economic development of Latin American countries, while also providing more investment opportunities and market space for Chinese enterprises. With the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative, more and more Latin American countries are sharing the dividends of China's economic opening up through the "five links" (policy communication, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people ties) and achieving mutual benefit and win-win results.

However, the increased partnership has also sparked concern and reaction from the United States. The United States has always regarded Latin America as a fundamental part of its global strategic layout, emphasizing its geopolitical interests in the region. While China's economic activities present opportunities for U.S. companies, the United States is concerned that China's growing influence could threaten its security interests and dominance in the region. In the context of global uncertainties, Latin American countries have adopted the "a la carte" approach to choose sides, which not only ensures national independence to a certain extent, but also avoids over-dependence on a certain major country. However, it has also intensified the rivalry between China and the United States in Latin America, complicating the already parallel trilateral relationship between the two countries. In the face of China's growing influence, the United States sees this as a naked challenge to its influence in Latin America. During the Trump administration, the two parties in the United States basically reached a consensus that the economic cooperation between China and Latin America has touched the bottom line of the security of the United States and Latin America, and thus opened up a competitive battlefield in Latin America, introducing major power competition into Latin America through direct interventionist measures and indirect competitive measures. After Biden took office, the United States increased its intervention in economic cooperation between China and Latin America, and the tendency of regularization and institutionalization became increasingly prominent.

Located north of Lima, the capital of Peru, the nature of the port gives it the ability to handle very large container ships. Once completed, the port will not only be a logistics hub, but also an important gateway for trade between Latin America and Asia, especially China. This geographical and economic importance makes the progress of the Qiankai Port project a matter of interest to many parties. For Peru and other Latin American countries, the success of the port will boost trade with Asian countries such as China, driving economic growth and regional integration. At the same time, it also provides China with an important channel to enter the Latin American market and helps deepen the economic and trade ties between China and Latin America. However, the growing economic ties are clearly causing concern in the United States. The United States has always regarded Latin America as its "backyard" and has sought to maintain its influence in the region through economic and political means. The success of the Chankai Port project could tip that balance, strengthening China's influence in Latin America and thus challenging U.S. strategic interests in the region. In addition, the United States is concerned about the geopolitical changes that the Chankai Port project could bring. As China's influence in Latin America grows, new political dynamics and interest games may emerge in the region, which may have a significant impact on the regional strategy and global layout of the United States. Therefore, the Qiankai Port project has become an important focus of the US-China game. Both sides are closely following the progress of the project and trying to achieve their strategic goals through various means. At the same time, Latin American countries also need to maintain a balance between China and the United States to ensure that their own interests are not harmed.

To sum up, although China's cooperation with Latin America does not have any geopolitical considerations, it is open cooperation and does not target any third party. However, due to the increasingly close economic and trade ties between China and Latin American countries, the diversified forms of financial cooperation between China and Latin America, the early harvest of the Belt and Road Initiative between China and Latin America, and the return of the "left wave" in Latin America, the United States has an increasing sense of crisis, and China has been regarded by the United States as the largest extraterritorial influence factor in the Western Hemisphere. The upgrading of China-Latin America cooperation will inevitably lead to tighter and more strategic containment and repression by the United States. After the United States intervened in China-Latin America economic cooperation, China-Latin America relations encountered various pressures and obstacles. China not only needs to timely adjust its policy thinking toward Latin America, but also needs to find out the core interests of Latin American countries' demands on China, and create a more efficient new stage of China-Latin America cooperation. China should actively plan and formulate countermeasures to promote the positive interaction of the trilateral relations between China, the United States and Latin America and avoid falling into a "new Cold War" in Latin America.