Has China been a hegemonic challenge to the United States in Latin America in recent years? The article explores this question by setting a comparison with historical cases of instances of hegemonic challenge in Latin America, searching for similarities and differences, and looking for makers of rivalry as a way to start to distinguish perception from reality. I stress the instrumentality of framing issues, since they serve for internal mobilization and for control of allies. The article also attempts to illuminate the issue of how the United States has reacted to China's growing presence in an area historically considered within its sphere of interests, or “backyard,” and about the dialogue between the United States and China about the region. It provides insights on the United States, China and Latin American countries’ policy makers’ thinking, collected through off-the- record interviews and closed-door debriefings.

Analyses of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) sometimes question the investment criteria of Chinese firms, suggesting that market rules are not fundamental but secondary to political and geostrategic concerns. Questioning the apolitical nature of markets, the present article uses the internationalization of China's mining industry as a case study to ascertain the criteria that guide Chinese FDI. It first examines quantitative data from 2000 to 2010 which suggests that Chinese mining investment in Latin America and worldwide gravitates towards liberal economies. Second, by focusing on the projects of Chinese mining firms in Peru, the article illustrates how China's overseas mineral quest is best explained by probing into the integrated strategies of individual mining firms which seek to capitalize their comparative advantage in accessing Chinese markets and the political momentum of the “Going Out” strategy.

There has been considerable concern in Latin America over the implications of increased competition from China for local industry. These concerns include the possibility of “deindustrialization,” the increased “primarization” of the region's exports and the difficulties of upgrading manufactured exports into higher technology products. This article examines the impact of Chinese competition both in the domestic market and in export markets on Brazilian industry. It documents the increased penetration of Chinese manufactures in the Brazilian market and the way in which Brazilian exports have lost market share to China in the US, European Union and four Latin American countries. Brazil, because of its more developed and locally integrated industrial sector, is not typical of other Latin American countries and the article also discusses the relevance of the Brazilian experience for the region as a whole.

Mexico's economic relationship with China has intensified substantially in the last decade. Based on an increasing literature on the overall and aggregate relationship, this analysis proposes a detailed examination of the auto parts-automobile chain, which is of utmost importance for both countries and will be significant for understanding the future trade relationship between them. In order to understand the industrial organization of Mexico and China, the article first gives an overview of the international trade and industrial organization patterns. After establishing the characteristics of Mexico's and China's legal framework, production, employment and trade, the analysis concludes with a group of proposals to improve binational co-operation. Both countries – China interested in increasing its export platform based on Chinese parts brands and Mexico supplying parts and components and providing decades of experiences in international networks – can benefit from these suggestions and overcome current tensions.

Chinese communities resident in Mexico and Cuba face a common problem: their dealings with business partners in China are perceived as a threat to national interests. In Mexico this concern emanates from manufacturers unable to compete with Chinese imports, and is evident in antagonistic news media and acts of hostility against Chinese businesses. In Cuba it stems from the state's stewardship over economic sovereignty, and is evident in efforts to assimilate Havana's Chinatown and its entrenched informal sector into a centralized scheme of commercial regulation. Interviews with policy makers, local officials and Chinese entrepreneurs indicate that the “rationalization” of Chinese ethnic allegiances for the greater public good is a critical step towards alleviating tensions. I conclude that both countries can leverage benefits from overseas Chinese communities, but to do so they must support their entrepreneurial activities, harness their networks to promote targeted imports and exports, and develop more culturally sensitive regulations.

China's increasing, and increasingly visible, engagement in Latin America has led to a variety of analyses, many based on either international relations notions of realism or international political economy precepts of trade. Rather than seeing China's rhetoric on its relations with Latin America as fluff that conceals a harder reality, this article takes rhetoric seriously as a device of “framing and claiming”: a way in which political elites in China interpret the fast-changing developing world and China's place in it. The article explores how political elites have understood the sources of China's own domestic development and then projected those notions on to other parts of the developing world, through earlier “fractal” logics of development whereby each state repeats one model of development in its own way and a currently dominant “division of labour” logic that posits one integrated model of development whereby complementarity and comparative advantage hold sway. The article concludes with a comparison of China's relations with Peru and Brazil, suggesting that China's bilateral relations with Brazil indicate a newer, emerging rhetoric of global partnership based on equality.

Using online Chinese communities as primary sources, this article studies public perceptions in China of Latin America in terms of how the region is seen as part of the Third World while also offering China a convenient backyard by which to access the First World United States. Codified online public opinion on four different Latin American topics is then analysed and compared with official opinion: how “Latin Americanization” becomes China's nightmare, how the Latin Americans should learn from the “China model,” how the Latin Americans were being discriminated in the H1N1 epidemic, and how the “Latin American card” to balance the United States is emphasized. The conclusion suggests that only when the stereotypes discussed in this article are dismissed will the true value of Latin America gradually obtain any standing in the eyes of ordinary Chinese and will the Latin American mission of the Chinese government be fully understood by its subjects.

The fast-paced landing of China in Latin America raises the question of how such a complex relationship is being built from little previous contact. Focusing on Colombia's printed media, the article examines the construction of China's public image. A Janus-faced view of China is initially revealed: a growing power perceived as an auspicious trade partner on the one hand; a troubling new actor in the international context on the other. Further analysis shows shades of grey that reveal a multifaceted, continuously evolving image of China that tells us much about both countries. The depiction of China's rising power, whose direction and purpose suggest a paradigm of “modernity without enlightment,” brings light to Colombia's unsettled accounts with democracy and development. The article sets a launching pad for further research on such mutually constitutive relationships.

This article offers an analytical introduction to some important Cuba-related discussions in China in the last two-and-a-half decades. No Latin American nation has been treated like Castros' (Fidel and Raul) Cuba in China's ideological development. Cuba's revolutionary experience in the past and the regime's defiance of major global trends – from retreat of socialism to advancement of neo-liberalism – correspond to a wide range of opinions in China and are exploited by them to address their own concerns. To borrow Orientalist analysis, just like the “Other” helps define “Self,” as a “socialist Other,” Cuba in Chinese perception often reflects China's own confusions and contradictions.