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The extent to which the Tehran regime has been promoting and increasing its presence in Latin America is striking. Its determined work in recent years to strengthen and intensify relations with countries in the region is leaving its mark. Today, the Islamic Republic already has 11 embassies in the region, operating with defense attachés in four of them, while also signing memorandums of understanding on security and defense matters with countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia.
The latter is precisely its most successful foreign policy project in the region, says Joseph Humire, a global security and terrorism expert, warning that “if there is any country in Latin America where Iran may be expanding its nuclear plans, it’s Bolivia.” Amid the confrontations in the Gaza Strip due to the Hamas terrorist attack, the Bolivian government broke off diplomatic relations with Israel, highlighting the close relationship and influence of Iran in Bolivia.
Academia
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This paper explores China’s public relations strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) through diplomacy, promoting study networks, cooperation among academies, and establishing a significant number of Confucius Institutes. This is supported by a vast network of print, audiovisual and digital media owned by China or LAC groups. Yet, among the LAC population, knowledge of China is minimal. In sectors dedicated to research, politics, and the economy and finance, there is a slightly favorable image of China due to economic interest. In the last decade, China has flooded the continent with exchange scholarships to attract and co-opt [ … ]
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report explores China’s strategy to influence Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) populations through the Chinese and local media. Both are vital in shaping local opinion in favor of the Communist Party of China’s (CCP) ideological objectives. News outlets such as the Xinhua News Agency, the People’s Daily, China Radio International, China Central Television (CCTV), CGTN Spanish, and China Today are strategic and geopolitical tools that seek to replicate, amplify, and consolidate the authoritarian power of China’s President Xi Jinping. China tries to transmit a positive image through campaigns in all possible media, incorporating journalists, academics, LAC politicians, [ … ]
A key element of China’s economic advance over the past four decades has been the government’s promotion of its companies’ acquisition of capabilities and market share in sectors seen as strategically important to the country. In recent years, that emphasis has increasingly focused on digital technologies and green energy. The advance of the People’s Republic of China- (PRC) based firms in telecommunications and other digital sectors has received significant coverage in the press and attention by U.S. policymakers. The equally important advance of PRC-based companies in green energy, however, has received less attention. In the past decade, in Latin America [ … ]
This article was originally published in The Diplomat on February 16, 2024. In September 2023, during a visit to China, Venezuela’s Nicholás Maduro announced an agreement in which China would transport Venezuelans to a research base it plans to build on the moon, the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project. As illustrated by the deal, China’s expanding space capabilities create imperatives for associated engagement around the globe, from initiatives to build international coalitions such as ILRS, to the search for access to ground stations and other space communication sites to support China’s expanding constellation of satellites, currently 700, as [ … ]