With that smile that expresses the oriental patience that characterizes them, an official of the Chinese embassy in Buenos Aires risks that Sergio Massa will arrive this Sunday at a Dazzling Shanghai.
The truth is that after the prolonged confinements due to Covid and a population that has begun to rebel, the obligation of 21 days of quarantine for foreigners and an isolation that has made the economy creak, the Chinese government He decreed the end of that plague and put all his efforts into healing.
They make sure it shows. This is happening in the midst of the dispute with the United States, which seek accelerate decoupling with China. In that tension and in his own desperation for dollars, Massa looks for a game of two, as advised by Perón: “I wink to the left and go to the right”. In the latter case, it favors 66% of the IMF’s portfolio being loans to Argentina, and despite 22 failed deals, Washington is interested in Argentina stay on the waterline, according to diplomatic sources.
By the way, Massa’s journey is divided into two stages. The first in Shanghai it will be measured in dollars and the second in Beijing where it will have to adhere to the Silk Road Action Plan which implies investments, some in trains and the more concrete extension of the Cauchari solar park in Jujuy. It would also include pipeline carrying Vaca Muerta gas to southern Brazil. Atucha III seems to have been left hanging so as not to raise the decibels in relations with the United States.
Diego Guelar, former ambassador to China, believes that the Chinese, who have commerce at the heart of their culture and are ready to cross borders and conquer markets, have adopted a strategy against the isolation imposed by the United States. position itself strongly in Europe and Latin America.
After the so-called century of humiliation, from being conquered by different empires and after Mao’s 1949 revolution and his various failed plans, President Xi Jinping, 70, took office in 2013 and achieved the possibility of being re-elected until 2028 , is headed for a new phase of capitalism. Xi, who was a rural literacy teacher in his youth and the son of a victim of the Cultural Revolution, he is determined to re-occupy the role of global locomotive, of course, on other tracks.
Bilateral trade with Europe reaches 900 billion dollarsthe second customer is the United States with 600 billion dollars and third Latin America with US$ 400,000 million. “In Europe, China has entered the system, owns 10% of Mercedes Benz, 100% of Volvo, 22% of Citroen and other stakes,” Guelar points out.
There has been an increase in the Chinese presence in Argentina in recent years. It is measured in the Noble-Nidera behemoths which account for most of the grain trading and crushing; in the mining sector where Shandong Gold partners with Barrick in the Veladero de San Juan project, in the dams they are building in the south and even in the controversial flicker of the far space observatory in Neuquény which was pivotal when China visited the dark side of the moon. There are frustrations such as joint investments with local entrepreneurs, including Hugo Sigman’s Insud group, for the production of pork destined for China.
According to the Argentine embassy in Beijing there are about 16 projects in the pipeline after the signing by Alberto Fernández in February 2022 to be part of the silk road.
In the Chamber of Commerce with China they reveal that the Chinese are like any other investor. That means, They are looking for a long-term secure place for their capital. That would not be the current case of Argentina. The opinion of the 34 refrigerators that have just participated in Sial, the food fair that has just ended in Shanghai, is different: we send you 77% of our meats.
Something that catches the eye and could deepen with the yuan change is Argentina’s chronic trade deficit with China, which reached $9.5 billion in 2022. while Brazil’s surplus reaches $35 billion, Chile’s $10.00 million.
Source: Clarin
