Ren Hongyan,

Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and

Plenipo­ten­tiary of Chi­na to T&T

On De­cem­ber 10, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial­ly re­leased the Chi­na Pol­i­cy Pa­per on Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (LAC). This is the third pol­i­cy doc­u­ment Chi­na has is­sued on the LAC re­gion, aimed at sum­maris­ing the achieve­ments of Chi­na-LAC co­op­er­a­tion, ar­tic­u­lat­ing Chi­na’s over­all pol­i­cy to­wards the re­gion, and out­lin­ing a bright vi­sion for the fu­ture of its re­la­tions.

Chi­na and LAC coun­tries be­long to the fam­i­ly of the Glob­al South. Al­though ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly dis­tant, Chi­na and LAC have en­joyed a long his­to­ry of ex­changes. Un­der the strate­gic guid­ance of lead­ers on both sides, Chi­na-LAC re­la­tions have con­tin­ued to ad­vance steadi­ly.

In 2015, the Chi­na-CELAC Fo­rum was of­fi­cial­ly launched, giv­ing Chi­na-LAC co­op­er­a­tion a more in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work. This May, the Fourth Min­is­te­r­i­al Meet­ing of Chi­na–CELAC Fo­rum was suc­cess­ful­ly held in Bei­jing, where Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping an­nounced the launch of Five Pro­grammes—Sol­i­dar­i­ty, De­vel­op­ment, Civil­i­sa­tion, Peace, and Peo­ple-to-Peo­ple Con­nec­tiv­i­ty—lay­ing out a grand blue­print for build­ing the Chi­na–LAC com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture. Now, I would like to de­pict the vi­brant de­vel­op­ment of Chi­na-LAC re­la­tions through three key phas­es.

Phase one:

Equal­i­ty and re­spect

Equal­i­ty and re­spect form the foun­da­tion of the Chi­na-LAC com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture. In re­cent years, strate­gic co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Chi­na and LAC has con­tin­ued to deep­en, high-lev­el ex­changes have be­come more fre­quent, and po­lit­i­cal mu­tu­al trust has grown steadi­ly.

Both sides pur­sue in­de­pen­dent for­eign poli­cies, firm­ly sup­port each oth­er’s core in­ter­ests and ma­jor con­cerns, op­pose pow­er pol­i­tics and in­ter­fer­ence in in­ter­nal af­fairs, and work to­geth­er to safe­guard the in­ter­ests of the Glob­al South. The vast ma­jor­i­ty of coun­tries in the re­gion firm­ly abide by the one-Chi­na prin­ci­ple.

Chi­na is ready to take the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Pro­gramme as a new op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with LAC coun­tries to joint­ly ad­vance the Glob­al Gov­er­nance Ini­tia­tive, strength­en di­a­logue and con­sul­ta­tion among gov­ern­ments, po­lit­i­cal par­ties, and leg­isla­tive bod­ies, and deep­en ex­changes on gov­er­nance ex­pe­ri­ence.

Both sides should work to­geth­er to up­hold the in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem with the Unit­ed Na­tions at its core, and con­tin­ue to sup­port each oth­er on is­sues in­volv­ing their re­spec­tive core in­ter­ests.

Chi­na will sup­port coun­tries in the re­gion in achiev­ing greater uni­ty and strength, play­ing a more promi­nent role on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, and con­tribut­ing to the build­ing of a more just and eq­ui­table glob­al gov­er­nance sys­tem.

Phase two:

Mu­tu­al ben­e­fit and win-win

Mu­tu­al ben­e­fit and win-win co­op­er­a­tion dri­ve the Chi­na-LAC com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture. In re­cent years, Chi­na and LAC have achieved re­mark­able re­sults in prac­ti­cal co­op­er­a­tion.

In 2024, bi­lat­er­al trade reached a record US$518.4 bil­lion, while Chi­na’s stock of for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment in the re­gion sur­passed US$600 bil­lion.

High-qual­i­ty Belt and Road co­op­er­a­tion has made sig­nif­i­cant progress, with more than 20 coun­tries in the re­gion, in­clud­ing T&T, join­ing the Ini­tia­tive. In­fra­struc­ture con­nec­tiv­i­ty is flour­ish­ing: Chi­nese en­ter­pris­es have signed con­tract­ed projects worth over US$300 bil­lion in to­tal, and land­mark pro­grammes such as T&T’s Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and Pe­ru’s Chan­cay Port have been suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed.

Chi­na is ready to take the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the De­vel­op­ment and Peace Pro­grammes as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with LAC coun­tries to ad­vance the Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive and the Glob­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive.

Both sides can fur­ther tap co­op­er­a­tion po­ten­tial in ar­eas such as in­fra­struc­ture, trade, fi­nance, agri­cul­ture, food se­cu­ri­ty, clean en­er­gy, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, the blue econ­o­my, and cli­mate change, as well as deep­en de­vel­op­ment as­sis­tance. Chi­na will ac­tive­ly strength­en friend­ly ties with re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and mul­ti­lat­er­al in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing CELAC, Cari­com, and ACS, in or­der to pro­mote col­lec­tive co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Chi­na and LAC.

Chi­na al­so stands ready to ex­pand co­op­er­a­tion with re­gion­al coun­tries in law en­force­ment, an­ti-cor­rup­tion, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, dis­as­ter pre­ven­tion and mit­i­ga­tion, nar­cotics con­trol, and ef­forts against il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion and transna­tion­al crime, so as to joint­ly safe­guard re­gion­al pros­per­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty.

Phase three:

Open­ness and in­clu­sive­ness

Open­ness and in­clu­sive­ness add vi­tal­i­ty to the Chi­na-LAC com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture. In re­cent years, cul­tur­al ex­changes be­tween Chi­na and LAC coun­tries have grown even clos­er. Con­fu­cius In­sti­tutes and Con­fu­cius Class­rooms have flour­ished across the re­gion, while both “LAC Fever” in Chi­na and “Chi­na Fever” in the re­gion con­tin­ue to rise.

Peo­ple-to-peo­ple bonds have been fur­ther strength­ened: Chi­na has award­ed 17,000 gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ships and of­fered around 13,000 train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in Chi­na for LAC na­tion­als.

Chi­na is ready to take the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Civil­i­sa­tion and Peo­ple-to-Peo­ple Con­nec­tiv­i­ty Pro­grammes as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with LAC coun­tries to ad­vance the Glob­al Civil­i­sa­tion Ini­tia­tive.

We will strength­en co­op­er­a­tion in ed­u­ca­tion, hu­man re­sources train­ing, me­dia, sports, think tanks, con­sular af­fairs, and tourism, host more vi­brant cul­tur­al ex­change ac­tiv­i­ties, pro­vide ad­di­tion­al gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ships and train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, and sup­port re­gion­al coun­tries in pro­mot­ing Chi­nese lan­guage ed­u­ca­tion. We will fur­ther fa­cil­i­tate per­son­nel ex­changes, build stronger bridges for mu­tu­al learn­ing be­tween Chi­nese and LAC peo­ples, and en­sure that the tree of Chi­na-LAC friend­ship re­mains ever­green.

Chi­na-LAC co­op­er­a­tion em­pow­ers both sides, de­liv­ers mu­tu­al ben­e­fits, and is com­mit­ted to im­prov­ing peo­ple’s well-be­ing, demon­strat­ing broad de­vel­op­ment prospects and strong vi­tal­i­ty.

Chi­na has al­ways at­tached great im­por­tance to its re­la­tions with LAC and has stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with re­gion­al coun­tries through thick and thin.

Chi­na is ready to take the re­lease of this pol­i­cy pa­per as a new start­ing point to deep­en prac­ti­cal co­op­er­a­tion with T&T and oth­er re­gion­al part­ners, pro­mote the align­ment of high-qual­i­ty Belt and Road co­op­er­a­tion with de­vel­op­ment strate­gies such as T&T’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print, im­ple­ment the Five Pro­grammes, re­new tra­di­tion­al friend­ship, pur­sue shared de­vel­op­ment and pros­per­i­ty, and set a new bench­mark for South-South co­op­er­a­tion.

To­geth­er, we can build an even clos­er Chi­na–LAC com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture.