Revisiting Chinese and Latin American Economic Development: An Unintended Consequence of Different Industrialization Strategies

The chapter provides a framework for understanding the China-Latin American economic relations. The analysis is based on a review of the two different industrialization strategies adopted by China and Latin America–Export-oriented Industrialization (EOI) and Import-substitution Industrialization (ISI). The author argues that the synergy of internal and external factors came to shape their development strategies in different directions and link their development and economies with the global market (competition, production chain, value chain). Some of the current problems in China-Latin America economic relations are directly or indirectly connected with the unintended consequences of the different industrialization strategies. The chapter concludes that it is in the political and economic interest of Latin America to continue to seize the chance of China’s rise as external “promotion by invitation” and to increase its “room for maneuver” and “upward mobility” by finding strategic convergence with China’s global strategy.