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“The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization,” by Kevin Gallagher and Roberto Porzecanski...reviewed by Tom Thompson.
MW: "...China’s policies in Latin America are driven by its own industrial base, whose design is to produce more than its domestic economy can consume, so that the nation can flood the rest of the world with hard-currency-earning exports. In order to accomplish this goal, China must import raw materials.
It is the crudest of beggar-thy-neighbor mercantilism. China buys raw materials and sends them back as competitively manufactured goods. The value-added production from the raw materials extraction process, true to Galeano, is done in China."
AND: "China’s interest in the region appears directly to try to take advantage of the spending power of Latin America’s emerging middle class by flooding markets with cheap manufactured goods. Latin America also appears to be a wide-open market for contraband products. Pirated music, CDs, DVDs, and imitations of design clothing and footwear are notable examples."
