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March 30, 2005
Chinese trailblazing
On the topic of China's expanding influence in the developing world, the Economist recently ran a piece (locked, unfortunately, behind a subscription firewall) about Brazilian-Peruvian cooperation on completing a paved road link between Brazil's agricultural heartland and Peru's Pacific ports. The motivation? The vast Chinese market for Brazilian soya. But as the article points out, benefits will also be found closer to home:
This great road link is not a new idea. Peru's government hacked a trail through the jungle to the border in 1965. In the 1970s, a military government bought a 700-metre suspension bridge from Austria to span the Madre de Dios, a mightier river than the Acre. But the steel girders for the bridge have remained in their boxes since arriving in Peru in 1978. They might have remained there for another quarter-century had Lula's government not shown enthusiasm for the project. It is putting up $420m of the $892m cost for the highway. For Peru, the road is expected to provide some 20,000 jobs, one way or another, during construction. Once open, officials hope it will attract business and more jobs to some of the country's poorest towns in the Andes and the jungle. They talk of a new export market opening up in Brazil for such products as paprika and artichokes.
Brazil's ambitions for the road are even grander. It already sends 18% of its exports to Asia, and that share is rising fast. China is lapping up Brazilian soyabeans and wood pulp, much of which is produced in the country's centre-west region. At present, these goods have to be carried to Atlantic ports or trucked across Argentina to Chile. The new road will provide a much shorter route. Officials expect a daily flow of some 400 40-tonne trucks from Brazil. This should encourage investment in Peru's inefficient and run-down ports.
This is an excellent example of how China's burgeoning power can be a force for good. With the vast Chinese market as motivation, developing states have an added incentive to complete long-dormant infrastructural improvements, thus benefiting local economies. The losers in this process, of course, are the same ones often cited by globalization and neoliberal opponents. The local environment is bound to be strained by the increased commercial traffic, and indigenous cultures may be displaced or even destroyed by the influx of outsiders. But this case just goes to show that the new geopolitical and economic realities created by an emerging China are much too complex to be singularly dismissed or condemned. The trick will be to recognize and adapt to such new realities, and perhaps even to modulate them if they get out of hand.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 10:11 PM to Americas,
