Implications of Chinas Charm Offensive for the Sino-Venezuelan Research Paper

Implications of Chinas Charm Offensive for the Sino-Venezuelan Relations and the World Powers Energy Security - Research Paper Example From a conservative geopolitical perspective, Latin America and China are isolated from each other and appear improbable allies. After the establishment of New China in 1949, Latin America and China largely engaged in people-to-people transactions without conducting formal diplomatic affairs. Then again, the 1970s is described by reconciliation in Sino-American relations and the re-admission of China into the United Nations, which witnessed China start building diplomatic relations with most nations in Latin America (Locatelli, 2011). Since 1978, China enforced a strategy of opening up and restructuring, which involved the country conducting major policy reforms toward Latin America and stressing trade and economic partnership with this region. In the recent years, the developing economy of China and fast growing power in the global arena has become ever more appealing to countries of Latin America, which view Beijing as a major site for the expansion of their foreign economic and po litical ties. The strategic features of China’s diplomatic relations with Latin America have involved building strategic ties with Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela (Locatelli, 2011). Latin America has a big market and rich resources, and the region has eventually evolved into a foundation for global development. Particularly, Latin American countries have turned out to be strategically vital to China, both in political and economic terms. China’s policy toward Latin America is rooted in the relative advantage theory—its objective is to gain access to natural resources or raw materials for domestic economic development, as well as...Although the emphasis of China’s policies over the recent decades has been on national economic rebuilding and development, China’s foreign policy has fulfilled a considerably vital part in building and sustaining an international setting. China’s ‘charm offensive’ or peaceful and positi ve relations with other nations and its status in the global system are very beneficial for attaining its policy goals. China’s vision of global amity is both an objective in itself and a way to attain its goal of economic progress and nonviolent emergence as a world power. Without a largely harmonious and established global structure, China’s economic growth would have been impossible (Kurlantzick, 2007). Hence, China’s national economic rebuilding and foreign policy are strongly interwoven with each other. Basically, China’s foreign policy is obliged to serve its entire economic program, and its rising economic power has allowed China to become more involved and influential in the arena of international relations. However, China’s relationship with Venezuela and its security policy toward the oil-producing Latin American country are, according to numerous scholars and policymakers, a threat to the United States. China and Venezuela openly declare their ambition of curtailing U.S. hegemony, and has made steps to create a multipolar world where the global power of the United States would be weakened. At this point, even with China’s charm offensive policy, it is very difficult to determine whether or not the other world powers should be wary about China’s growth as an economic, political, and military power.