Beyond the Neocolonial Label: Reassessing China’s Engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean

Q: What is Negotiated Asymmetric Interdependence as defined in this paper?

A configuration in which Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) nations maintain limited but meaningful agency over the terms of their engagement with China, despite the existence of a substantial and influential structural power gap. This concept explains practical relational dynamics that are not captured by neo-colonial frameworks or official win-win narratives.

Q: Does China's engagement with the LAC region exhibit neo-colonial characteristics?

The research findings indicate that while asymmetry was observed across economic, cultural, technological, and political domains, the three constitutive conditions of neo-colonialism—structural asymmetry, active control mechanisms, and the blockage of exit paths—were not simultaneously met. Therefore, China's engagement is defined as a relationship of negotiated asymmetric interdependence rather than systematic domination.

Qi Zhang; Joaqu&iacute;n Beltr&aacute;n Antol&iacute;n

doi:10.69473/iasr.2026.29.2.135

Academic journal

Author: Qi Zhang (Autonomous University of Barcelona) Joaquín Beltrán Antolín (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

Journal: Center for International Area Studies International Area Studies Review Vol.29 No.2

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Abstract·Keywords

China’s rise as a key economic partner to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has generated intense debate over whether its regional engagement constitutes neocolonialism, a debate that has reached analytical impasse. This article advances beyond the neocolonial label by applying a structured four-dimensional assessment, economic, cultural, technological, and political, against explicitly operationalized neocolonial criteria. Although China’s engagement produces identifiable asymmetries across all four dimensions, none satisfies the three constitutive conditions required for a neocolonial characterization as defined here. The article introduces the concept of “negotiated asymmetric interdependence” to describe what neither the neocolonial framework nor the official “win-win” narrative captures: a configuration in which structural power differentials are real and consequential, yet LAC states retain meaningful, if bounded, agency over the terms of engagement. It differentiates this concept from complex interdependence, asymmetric interdependence, dependency with agency, South–South cooperation, and post-hegemonic accounts of regional order, and grounds it in evidence spanning the high-exposure cases most favorable to the neocolonial thesis, within-case analyses of Ecuador’s oil-backed borrowing and the Las Bambas conflict, and the region’s largest economies, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.

#China–LAC relations #Neocolonialism #South-South cooperation #Negotiated asymmetric interdependence #Dependency theory #Soft Power

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