The Chinese Global Dream, Volume I

This book explores the socio-economic, political and diplomatic implications of China’s ongoing engagement with the Latin America region against the backdrop of an increasingly fragile global political climate. It investigates the successes of the post-pandemic era diplomacy, alongside the setbacks, as China seeks to secure and maintain her presence across the region. Ever since Xi lengthened his stewardship of China by another decade, he has been aiming to level-up the Chinese values and Sino-orientalism on the global stage. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) he expanded into the Middle East, and through natural resource veiled humanitarian relief efforts, he sought to strengthen China’s hold across Africa. Only Latin America now remains. This book investigates the tentative shift in bilateral and multilateral relations, along with the possibility and likelihood of a stronger China-Latin America alliance, and the reactions of the West. The book endeavours to combine traditional academic discourse with contemporary interpretations and provides a balanced assessment of the current successes and drawbacks of the network. Making a comparative analysis of the roles of each of the Latin American nations in allowing China to fulfil this endeavour through a global vs. local approach, this book is suitable for those researching and studying contemporary Chinese strategic relations, regional studies and geo-strategy. Young-Chan Kim is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Senior Lecturer in the Executive Business Centre at the University of Greenwich, UK. His main area of research before joining the University of Greenwich was International Business and Foreign Direct Investment among Asian multinational enterprises, specialising in Japanese and Korean corporations. Since 2010, he has focused intensively on China and global geostrategy. He has published extensively in the field of Chinese strategic relations and regularly engages with projects that are aimed at giving up-and-coming academics a platform to voice their contemporary research on Sino-Globalism and its ongoing impact on international relations and global institutions.