“We do not want to be China’s next Africa,” Neil Dávila, head of ProMéxico, México’s federal agency to promote foreign commerce and investments, is quoted as saying in a diplomatic cable released by the whistleblower website Wikileaks. “We [Mexicans] need to be owners of our own development.”


His comments reflect a growing trepidation across Latin América in response to the rapid ascendance of Chinese investments throughout the region, as nations from México to Brazil to Chile express concern about Chinese motives in the southern hemisphere – motives that, in the opinion of many people in Latin América, have been damaging to Africa in its business dealings with China.
“Colombia is wary of China’s motives and its lax labor and environmental standards,” Alejandro Ossa, Colombia’s commercial attaché in Beijing, is quoted as saying in another cable dated March 30. “China’s interest is motivated by a desire to expand its influence [in the region],” he adds, before taking a swipe at Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez -- who has unstintingly embraced Beijing’s overtures – noting that Colombia “is unwilling to be trampled by China, like Africa and Venezuela.”


Such sentiments -- the latest in a series of revelations to come out of the leaked cables -- mark an abrupt contrast to the lavish reception Chinese delegations have recently enjoyed in Latin América. As the United States has grown increasingly obsessed with Iraq and Afghanistan, nation after nation in Latin América has begun to feel neglected by Washington. China, aware of the gap, has quickly moved in to fill the vacuum, offering aid, making investments and entering into ambitious commercial deals with countries in the region. “Relations between the U.S. and Latin América had been ignored by the Bush administration and China sought to fill that void,” Daniella Menezes, first secretary of Brazil’s embassy in China, ...