European imperialists are worried about domination in Latin America, says document – A Nova Democracia

We publish below an unofficial translation of an article first appearing here on Brazilian revolutionary newspaper A Nova Democracia.

Several representatives of European imperialist powers shared their concerns in a technical report from the European Parliament accessed by the columnist for the UOL press monopoly, Jamil Chade, last week. The document cites the Chinese threat to Latin American natural resources dominated by Europe.

Latin America was described in the text as a region of “strategic importance for the future of the global economy due to its abundance of natural resources, such as lithium and copper”. The document states that the European Union lost its position as Mercosur’s [the Southern Common Market] main trading partner to Chinese social imperialism, which in 2023 was responsible for 26.7% of the South American bloc’s foreign trade, surpassing the EU’s 16.9% and the United States’ 13%. However, despite the growth of Chinese influence, the US is still the subcontinent’s largest exploiter. In 2021, the Yankee sole hegemonic superpower was responsible for 49% of the continent’s imports, according to the Ibero-American Association of Liquefied Gas and Petroleum (AIGLP).

The document points out that Chinese social imperialism has advanced mainly in the areas of “energy, raw materials and mining”. With the advance of the production of electric vehicles and other forms of technology, the increasing control of reserves of lithium, copper and rare earths are fundamental to the growing dispute between Chinese social imperialism and Yankee imperialism. China monopolizes the purchase of rare earth elements from a mine in Brazil, as recently shown by AND.

According to Chade, China owns and operates 300 power plants and owns 50% of hydroelectric power generation in São Paulo, totaling 10% of the country’s energy production. In Chile, 57% of electricity production is Chinese. The EU fears that by 2035 China will surpass the US in investment in the region.

An important fact, however, is that although Chinese social-imperialists are advancing on the subcontinent, the Asian power is in no position to challenge Yankee dominance in the territory. This is because it is incapable of confronting the US militarily, especially outside Asia. This phenomenon became clear when, amid signs of Panama joining the “New Silk Road” this year, the US canceled the agreement by threatening the Latin country and then intensified its dominance in the territory by sending troops.

The masses respond

Those who suffer most from inter-imperialist disputes over Latin America’s natural resources are the Latin American masses themselves. In Panama, mass protests condemned the Yankees’ imperialist intervention in the country and the government’s subservience to the Americans.

Mobilization is also taking place in other countries. In Mexico, for years, peasants, indigenous people and defenders of the natural environment have been protesting in various ways against the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), a megaproject coordinated by US imperialism to counter the Panama Canal. The project was initiated precisely to compensate for Chinese control of the oldest canal, and the result has been the destruction of Mexico’s natural reserves and the theft of peasant and indigenous lands.

Mining has been the subject of intense protests across the subcontinent, particularly in Peru. In late March and early April, indigenous people blocked the entrance to a mine run by the Anglo-Swiss imperialist corporation Glencore in Antapaccay. Last year, several facilities of the mining company Poderosa were sabotaged amid agrarian conflicts in the country. In total, 16 electricity pylons were dynamited.

The imperialists’ attempts to deepen their plundering in Latin America tend to face obstacles from guerrilla struggles in countries such as Colombia and Paraguay, which have not ceased despite the governments’ attempts to push through false “national accords”, and armed struggles in other countries.

This set of mobilizations was addressed by the International Communist League (ICL) in a statement released on May 1 and translated by the blog Servir ao Povo [in English here]. In the text, the communists state that: “It would not be enough to say that in Latin America the prairie is dry; it would be more accurate to state that the entire region is a powder keg ready to explode in a revolutionary storm,” they write.

In the same paragraph, they point out that “based on this, the Maoists act by mobilizing, politicizing, organizing and, increasingly, arming the masses, especially the poor peasants, the main force of the democratic revolution.”

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