智利提出扩大“一带一路”倡议覆盖范围，建议将拉丁美洲及加勒比海国家纳入其中，而不仅仅面向亚非欧诸国
“一带一路”倡议，意在重现古代丝绸之路繁荣，是积极推进沿线国家发展战略相互对接的倡议。“丝绸之路经济带”这条新丝绸之路沿着公路和铁路，从中国中西部途经中亚各国直至西欧，将各国丰富的矿产资源纳入全球贸易流通之中。这将成为各国间“自由贸易协定”网络的有益补充，进一步推动沿线国家的贸易和商业发展。“21世纪海上丝绸之路”沿东南亚海岸，穿越印度洋一路到达非洲大陆，到达波斯湾，穿过地中海，抵达威尼斯，这条全球最繁忙的航运路线将获得进一步发展繁荣。“一带一路”旨在重塑欧亚大陆，这是何等的雄心壮志。
“一带一路”也是中国致力于发展中国家基础设施建设的重要组成部分。近年来，传统的国际金融机构主要将注意力集中在医疗或教育等软件建设上，却忽视了公路、港口、隧道、桥梁和铁路等这些推动经济发展的基础设施建设。诸多预测表明，未来10年亚洲将需要8万亿美元的基础设施投资，而世界银行和亚洲开发银行等机构所能提供的资金是远远无法满足这一需求的。亚洲是当今世界经济发展最具活力、速度最快经济体，亚投行及金砖银行在支撑并促进亚洲经济体发展方面将扮演重要角色。
但是人们也注意到，“一带一路”的项目并不只是局限于亚洲。他们的资金也可以扩展到其他与亚洲经济发展有关的项目，比如位于中美洲运河项目，很多船舶将通过这条运河去往亚洲。正是在这样的背景之下，智利提出扩大“一带一路”倡议覆盖范围，建议将拉丁美洲及加勒比海国家纳入其中，而不仅仅面向亚非欧诸国。
当然，拉丁美洲并非古代丝绸之路的一部分，为何要将它纳入“一带一路”倡议呢？
要回答这个问题，我们需要回顾和了解一下近年来拉丁美洲的发展情况以及它对于中国的重要性。
过去三十多年里，中国经济曾长期保持两位数增长，从而使得它对原材料和大宗商品的需求不断增加。而拉丁美洲尤其是南美很多得天独厚的资源正是中国所匮乏的，双方在多个方面具有很强的互补性。南美洲国家大多人口密度低，自然资源却很丰富，而中国的情况很大程度上正与其相反。另外，除了拉丁美洲丰富的矿产资源（比如，安第斯山脉被描述为“一个长期的露天矿”），最明显的一项指标就是人口与淡水储量的关系，这也是衡量农业生产能力的关键指标。中国人口总数为13.8亿，占世界总人口的18.7%，却只拥有全球7%的淡水储量。而拉丁美洲和加勒比海地区人口总数为6.4亿，占世界总人口的8.6%，其淡水储量却高达32%。可见，中国是一个粮食净进口国的现状不可能轻易改变，而拉丁美洲的粮食可以满足包括中国在内的世界其他地区的人口。当前，中拉贸易蓬勃发展，也是亚洲与拉丁美洲间贸易往来的重要组成部分。2000〜2010年10年间亚洲与拉美贸易额增长了20.5%，2011年突破4420亿美元，这其中，中国与拉美的双边贸易额就占到了一半。同一年，在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区对外贸易额，亚洲占到了21%，美国为34%。
2013年，中国与拉美贸易额从2000年的100亿美元增长至2670亿美元，增幅高达25倍多。2011年中国已成为巴西、智利和秘鲁最大出口国，阿根廷、古巴、乌拉圭和委内瑞拉的第二大出口国。中国对石油、铁、铜等矿产和矿物燃料以及大豆、水果等农产品的大量需求对于该地区的经济增长产生了直接推动作用，同时也间接地提高了这些产品的价格。
2003〜2013年这10年被凯文·加拉格尔（美国波士顿大学教授、中国与拉丁美洲问题专家，译者注）描述为“中国热潮”，得益于这股热潮，拉丁美洲外债减少，外汇储备增加，并对2008〜2009年发生的金融危机得以成功应对，贫困率降低、收入不平等现象也开始得到遏制。中国与拉丁美洲之间的经济合作取得了“双赢”效果，中国从该地区丰富的自然资源获益，为其稳固“世界工厂”地位提供生产生活保障，尤其是养活了13亿人口。在这10年间，拉丁美洲经济增长率达3.9%，为30年来的最高值，在许多方面都取得了长足发展。毫无疑问，在某种程度上，拉美独立运动200多年来，其在国际政治经济体系中的最大调整便是从传统的“向北美看，向西欧看”转为“向中国看”。
常言道，好景不长。十多年的大宗商品超级周期已经宣告结束，中国经济增速开始放缓，对于拉美的影响已经显现。根据国际货币基金组织的数据，该地区2016年经济增长率下降了0.5个百分点，其中巴西下降了3.8个百分点，厄瓜多尔为4.5个百分点，委内瑞拉为8个百分点。这种经济下滑部分是因油价的大幅下降导致的，但与中国经济增速放缓也是不无关系的。换言之，中国与拉美特别是南美国家之间的经济关联度越来越高。
基础设施投资及下一阶段中国与拉丁美洲关系的走势
在经济增速同比持平甚至下降的背景下，中国与拉丁美洲的贸易关系发展前进的道路在哪里？
在经济繁荣时期，中国和拉丁美洲之间日益增进的伙伴关系推动了太平洋两岸的经济发展；在经济疲软震荡时期，就更需要将这种伙伴关系更多元和深入地发展下去。对于拉丁美洲而言，通过重塑与欧美发达国家关系使经济得以复苏的想法并不可行。过去30年里，全球巨额财富通过贸易及投资流向的转变而发生了转移。全世界发展中国家在全球产品的份额已从七、八十年代的20%〜30%上升至2016年的40%〜50%。这意味着，当今许多极具吸引力的商业机会出现在发展中国家，特别是在以中国为核心的亚太地区。
挑战同样与机遇并存，在新形势下我们要继续推动中国与拉美关系发展，这也是李克强总理2015年访问南美的主要目的。在访问巴西、哥伦比亚、秘鲁和智利期间，李克强总理提出了雄心勃勃的合作计划。除了寻求方法促进双方经贸发展，他还提出了一系列建议，用以加强中拉投资与金融合作。
这正是中国与拉美的共同利益之所在。多年来，中国在国内住房及基础设施建设上进行了大量投资，建筑行业需求旺盛。而拉美国家在基础设施建设方面有着巨大的发展空间，特别是涉及多国的跨境设施。飞地经济的发展导致拉丁美洲出口至世界各地的矿产品和农产品从产地到港口的区域内运输设施匮乏，甚至发生倒退，例如横跨安第斯山脉、智利与阿根廷间的安第斯铁路（Ferrocarril Transandino）在上世纪80年代停运。另一个共同利益体现在能源领域，中国在太阳能和风能资源开发方面拥有比较优势，中国也表示有意在拉美建立工业园区，目前中国与非洲已经在开展类似合作。
所有这些正是当前拉美地区所需要的，一方面能扩大实体资本，另一方面可以提高生产能力，从而更好地融入全球生产链，与世界经济接轨。拉丁美洲的投资率较低，平均不到其GDP的19%，是致使该地区欠发达、身陷中等收入陷阱的主要因素之一，而来自中国的投资则能够为改变这些状况提供很大帮助。
在这个崭新的后繁荣时期，拉美仍有很好的机会，可以利用其与中国的关系，使生产结构更加多样化，加快发展。较之其他地区，中国能够向拉美提供更多的发展资源。2015年，中国向该地区提供的资金流量甚至高于来自世界银行、美洲开发银行及安第斯开发银行3家银行所提供的资金总量。中国—拉美和加勒比共同体论坛首届部长级会议2015年1月在北京举行，会上中国宣布将在为拉美提供总价值350亿美元的多项基金，资助该地区项目建设。
那么，对于拉美国家而言的挑战便是如何利用好这个机会。这将部分取决于拉美各国所采取的公共政策决策以及他们如何处理与中国的双边关系。同时，对于“双洋走廊”拉美，这也将取决于区域或次区域层面所做出的集体决定。就此而言，对于人均收入水平高于中国的拉丁美洲来说，关键问题在于提高生产率。广袤的南美大地，群山纵横，森林莽莽，河流密布，大西洋与太平洋海岸之间的这片广阔空间亟待更有效地互通互联。同中国的情况类似，南美的沿海地区相较于内陆地区更为发达。中国的技术，无论是在铁路、建筑、电信还是能源领域，都可以为这些问题的改善提供重要帮助。在过去10年里，高铁和移动电话在中国这个幅员辽阔、人口众多的国家得以充分发展，同样的努力也可以付诸在广阔的南美内陆及区域内其他地方。当今世界，发达的物流业是保持国际竞争力的关键所在，所以大力发展拉丁美洲的物流业也是一项紧迫任务。
智利复活节岛上的巨石人像
数字枢纽互联建设
“一带一路”倡议旨在加强辽阔的欧亚大陆东西方之间的公路和铁路互通互联。中国与拉美被地球第一大洋——太平洋所分隔。因此，一个关键问题是如何缩减地理上的距离，促进中国与西半球之间的交流。
全球化进程并未放缓脚步，而是在不断加速。麦肯锡全球研究所近期发布的报告《数字全球化:全球流动的新时代》指出，数据跨境流动比全球货物贸易更具经济意义。当今世界比以往任何时候都更加紧密相连，在过去的10年中，跨境带宽使用增加了45倍。如今这些纵横交错的光纤电缆网络就如同19世纪的铁路轨道一样，使得广袤的5大洲得以紧密连接和发展。
当今世界，90%的网络流量通过这些连接5大洲的海底光缆流通，有了这些“信息高速公路”，人们几乎能实时沟通（进行语音与数据传输）。过去20年，跨大洋及沿海地区已建成大规模光纤电信网络，给人们的生活带来巨大改变。没有这些网络，印度的信息技术革命难以想象，正如马斯·弗里德曼在他的畅销书《世界是平的——21世纪简史》中所指出的，印度极大地受益于这些光纤网络。90年代印度环球电讯公司作为先锋进行光缆铺设。环球电讯公司破产后，包括瑞莱斯（Reliance）在内的一些印度通信公司低价收购了这些光缆，使得其能够继续发展。
然而，参考一下这些光纤电缆铺设的世界分布图，可以发现一个不正常现象，这些光缆虽然连接着全球大部分地区，然而却没有一条是直接连接亚洲与南美或者拉美的。我们已经发现，过去的15年来，亚洲和拉丁美洲之间的贸易和投资流量不断攀升。这其中，中拉贸易总额就占据了一半，高达约2500亿美元。但具有讽刺意味的是，拉美国家与中国之间的互联网通信却需要取道北美。在南南经济交流比南北交流更为重要的时期，这一状况亟待得到改变。
近期访问中国时，智利通信部副部长彼德罗·维查拉夫与中国发展改革委副主任林念修共同签署了中智信息科技合作谅解备忘录，确定双方将开始研究建设连接中国与智利跨太平洋光缆项目的可行性，或将是连接中国上海与智利瓦尔帕莱索。维查拉夫称，智利是拉丁美洲互联网普及率最高的国家（拥有超过70%的互联网和127%的移动电话普及率），是拉美其他地区理想的数字中枢。亚洲（主要是中国）与拉美之间，以及其他跨太平洋地区之间电子商务的爆炸式增长（3.6亿人口从事跨境电子商务）意味着现有光缆（经北半球，一路蜿蜒直至南美，相当繁琐）的性能有待提高。
受第四次工业革命驱动，中国自己正在从“世界工厂”的身份转变成为跨境数据流的枢纽。根据MGI连接索引的排名，中国已从几年前的第25名跻身为目前的第7名。要想完成如此具有世界级难度的项目，在跨越全球面积最大的海洋铺设1.9万公里光缆，中国企业需要拥有一流的技术。
该项目也将促进亚洲与拉美之间的进一步联系，经验告诉我们，大宗商品超级周期结束时，商品贸易日趋扁平化，抑制了跨太平洋贸易的增长。（全球商品贸易在全球国内生产总值的占比从2007年的26.6%下降至2014年的24.6%）。未来5年，中国视创新与服务为经济发展的驱动力，拉美国家在自身前进发展的道路上需要将这一启示铭记于心。然而，直至如今，拉美国家的关注点仍主要停留在商品出口以及国际贸易，因而未能从国际数据连接中获得本该可以获得的收益。
“一带一路”倡议的提出，成立亚洲基础设施投资银行以及金砖国家新开发银行，无一不显示出中国致力于南半球基础设施发展的信心。公路、铁路和海上航路一直以来都是“一带一路”中的重头戏，也是最初该倡议的核心部分，对于他们的需求是毫无疑问的。然而，与这些实体基础设施工程同等重要的，我们还必须考虑全球化新阶段所面临的迫切需要，跨境数据流动将成为其发展的重要驱动力。
我们可以预见，通过连接亚洲与拉丁美洲，中国与智利之间的跨太平洋光缆将大力推动大洋两岸的经济增长与发展。
(文｜贺乔治（Jorge Heine）智利驻华大使 图片提供｜智利驻华大使馆 翻译｜彭睿)
英文版：
A Trans-Pacific One Belt, One Road
By H.E. Mr. Jorge Heine，ChileAmbassador to China; Photo Provided by Chilean Embassy in China
Recreating the old Silk Road by means ofthe One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is one of the most excitingtransnational infrastructure projects today. By land, the New Silk Road would go all the way from Central and WesternChina to Western Europe, through highways and railways that would cut throughthe Central Asian republics, tapping into their many mineral riches andbringing them into the mainstream of global trade flows. This would besupplemented by a network of FTAs that would give an additional impetus tocommerce and business. By sea, going down along the coast of South East Asiaand then across the Indian Ocean all the way to Africa, up the Persian Gulf, tocross the Mediterranean to end up in Venice, it would give a further boost toone of the busiest shipping routes anywhere. Aimed at recreating Eurasia, it isnothing if not ambitious.
Itis also part and parcel of China´s broader commitment to building up the infrastructureof the Global South. Traditional IFIs have focused lately on “soft” areas likehealth or education, often neglecting the “nuts and bolts” of paved roads,ports, tunnels, bridges and railways that actually make an economy run. To theUS$ 40 billion New Silk Road Fund, we should thus add the resources availableto the Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) launched in Beijing in2015, and those of the New Development Bank ( the so-called “BRICS Bank”)launched that same year in Shanghai. According to at least one estimate, Asiawill need US$ 8 trillion in infrastructure investment over the course of thenext decade, something for which the resources available to entities like theWorld Bank and the Asian Development Bank are insufficient. Institutions like the AIIB and the NDB havethus come to fulfill an important role in buttressing and enhancing the “hardwiring” of Asian economies, the most dynamic and fast-growing in the worldtoday.
Interestingly, their mandate is not limitedto projects in Asia. Their funding can also be extended to projects elsewherethat are relevant for Asian economic development—say, a canal inCentral America where much of the shipping going through it would go to Asia.And it is in this context that Chile has mooted the possibility of extendingthe OBOR initiative not just to the East, but also to the West of China, thatis, towards Latin America and the Caribbean.
Latin America, of course, was not part ofthe old Silk Road. Why should it be partof the New Silk Road ?
To answer that question, we shall need tobacktrack a little bit and examine recent developments in the region as well asits significance for China.
Why is Latin America significant for China?
China´s double digit growth over the pastthree decades has led to an increasing demand for raw materials andcommodities, something with which Latin America, and particularly SouthAmerica, is richly endowed. Latin America´s ,and especially South America´sresource endowment is very different from China´s, and in many ways highlycomplementary. Whereas South American countries are mostly characterized by lowpopulation density and a rich natural resource endowment, China´s situation islargely the opposite. Quite apart of Latin America´s rich mining endowment (the Andes mountains have been described as “one long open pit mine”), perhaps the most revealing indicator is thatof the relationship of population and fresh water reserves, a key measure ofagricultural production capacity. Whereas China, with 1.38 billion people has18.7 per cent of the world´s population but only 7 per cent of the world´sfresh water reserves, Latin America and the Caribbean, with a population of 640million has 8.6 per cent of the world´s population and 32 per cent of freshwater reserves. What this means is that China will always be a net foodimporter, whereas Latin America can feed much of the rest of the world,including China.Thus, in the course of the present century, Sino-Latin Americantrade has flourished. This was part and parcel of the broader trend ofAsian-Latin American trade. The latter grew at 20.5% a year between 2000 and2010, with trade between both regions reaching US$ 442 billion dollars in 2011,with China accounting for about half of that. In 2011, Asia accounted for 21per cent of Latin America and the Caribbean foreign trade, whereas the UnitedStates accounted for 34 per cent.
China´s trade with the region grew fromUS$10 billion dollars in 2000 to US$ 267 billion in 2013, an increase of 2500per cent. In 2011, China had become the # 1 export market for Brazil, Chile andPeru, and the # 2 export market for Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay and Venezuela. Theimpact on economic growth was direct, by means of the considerable Chinesedemand for minerals and fossil fuels such as oil, iron and copper, as well asfor agricultural products such as soya and fresh fruit. The impact was alsoindirect, as it increased the prices of these products.
And this decade of what Kevin Gallagher hasdescribed as the “China Boom”, lasting from 2003 to 2013, allowed Latin Americato cut down its foreign debt, increase its foreign currency reserves, dealsuccessfully with the 2008-2009 financial crisis, lower the poverty rate andeven start to diminish its enormous income inequality. China´s increasedpresence in Latin America was thus a clear “win-win” proposition. Chinabenefitted from the region´s vast reserves of natural resources to fuel itsseemingly unstoppable growth into the “world´s factory” and to feed its 1.3billion people. The region grew at 3.9% during these ten years, its bestperformance in three decades and made headway on many fronts. There is littledoubt that this was in some ways the biggest re-alignment of Latin Americawithin the international political economy in its 200 years of independenthistory, as much of South America shifted its traditional orientation towardsNorth America and Western Europe towards China.
That said, all good things come to an end,and now that the commodities super-cycle has run its course and the Chineseeconomy has slowed down, the effect in Latin America has been perceptible.According to the IMF, the region will have a negative growth of -0.5 per centin 2016, with Brazil growing at – 3.8 percent, Ecuador at -4.5 per cent and Venezuela at –8 per cent.Although this is partly related to the drastic drop in the price of oil, it isnot independent of the Chinese slowdown. In other words, a linkage of sorts has developed between the Chineseeconomy and the Latin American ones—though especiallythe South American ones.
Infrastructure investment and the nextphase in Sino-LAC relations
In acontext of flat or even declining trade flows between China and Latin America,which is the way forward ?
Much as the growing partnership betweenChina and Latin America was instrumental at the time of the boom to propel theeconomies on both sides of the Pacific forward, a more diversified and deeperrelationship is now needed to continue with this partnership in times ofturbulence and slow-down. For Latin America, the notion that it could simply goback to the situation ex ante, that is, to put once again its links with thecountries around the North Atlantic front and center, is not a viableproposition. Because of the massive wealth shift that has taken place in thecourse of the past three decades, in matters of trade and investment flows, aswell as in their share of the global product, the countries of the Global Southhave gone from shares of 20 to 30 per cent in the seventies and eighties, toshares of 40 to 50 per cent in 2016. This means that many of the mostattractive business opportunities today are in the South, and particularly inthe Asia-Pacific, whose core is formed by China.
The challenge, then, is to keep themomentum in Sino-LAC relations under these new circumstances. In many ways,that was the main purpose of the visit of Prime Minister Li Keqiang to SouthAmerica in May 2015. In visits to Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile, he setforth an ambitious cooperation program. In addition to looking for ways to givean additional impetus to stagnant trade flows, he unveiled a number of tools topromote investment and financial cooperation between China and Latin America.
And it is here that we find a significantconvergence between China´s and Latin America´s interests. After many years ofconsiderable investment in its own housing and infrastructure needs, China hasan enormous installed capacity in the construction sector. Latin America, inturn, still has large deficits in its infrastructure, especially when it comesto cross-border facilities. The development of enclave economies has led to apattern of transport connections designed to take minerals or farm productsfrom production units to the ports ( to be exported to the rest of the world)with few facilities oriented towards intra-regional transport. In this, theregion has sometimes even gone backwards, as in the case of the closing down ofthe FerrocarrilTransandino, the trans-Andean railway between Chile andArgentina, in the eighties. A similar convergence is to be found in the energysector, where China has developed significant comparative advantages in solarand wind energy sources. China has also shown its willingness to collaborate inthe establishment of industrial parks in Latin America, something it alreadyhas done in Africa.
All of this goes very much in the directionthat the region requires today. Thisentails increasing its physical capital, on the one hand, and its productivity,on the other, thus improving its ability to insert itself into globalproduction chains and the world economy more generally. Latin America´s lowinvestment rate, on average no higher than 19% of GDP, is one reason why theregion has not been able to make the transition into a fully developed one,beingstuck in the middle-income trap. Chinese investment can thus make animportant contribution to change this.
In this new, post-boom phase, Latin Americahas a great opportunity to capitalize on its links with China, diversify itsproduction structure and enhance its development pace. The resources that Chinais making available to the region are higher than those available from anywhereelse. In 2015, financial flows from China to the region were higher than thosecoming from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the AndeanPromotion Corporation (CAF) put together. At the First Ministerial China-LACForum held in Beijing In January 2015, China announced the establishment of avariety of funds to finance projects in the region, funds that total some US$35 billion.
The challenge, then, is how to make themost of this opportunity. In part, this will depend on the public policydecisions taken in each of the respective countries and their bilateralhandling with their Chinese counterparts. But, as in the case of the bi-oceaniccorridors in South America, this will also depend on collective decisions, madeat the regional or sub-regional level. As mentioned above, a key issue forLatin America, whose per capita income is , on average, higher than China´s, isto increase productivity. The vast spaces of South America, split by some ofthe highest mountains, largest forests and widest rivers anywhere, badly needto be inter-connected more efficiently and effectively. This is especially truefor the vast spaces between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. Similarly toChina, it is the coastal regions of South America that have seen most progress,whereas the interior has often been left behind. Chinese technology, be it inrailways, in construction, in telecommunications or in energy , can make asignificant contribution to remedying this situation. In the course of the pastdecade, China´s vast territory and its enormous population has been integratedthrough the bullet train and mobile telephony. Something similar can be donewith vast swathes of the South American interior and other parts of the region.In a world in which logistics holds the key to many aspects of internationalcompetitiveness, this is an especially urgent task.
Digital connectivity at center stage
The OBOR initiative aims to strengthen theroad-and-railway connection between the East and the West of the vast Eurasianlandmass. China and Latin America, on the other hand, are separated by theworld´s largest water body, the Pacific Ocean. A key issue is thus how to cutthis enormous distance to facilitate exchanges between China and the WesternHemisphere. And it is here that we must keep in mind the changing nature ofglobalization.
Rather than slowing down, globalization ismorphing. As a recent report from the McKinsey Global Institute, Digitalglobalization: The new era of global flows,tells us, digital flows are now moreeconomically significant than trade in goods. In an ever-more-connected world,the cross-border bandwidth being used has grown 45 times in the past decade.The fiber-optic cables that criss-cross the world today are the modern-dayequivalent of the nineteenth century railway tracks that made it possible topopulate and develop vast swathes of the five continents.
Nowadays, 90 per cent of the Internettraffic circulates via these submarine cables that link up these fivecontinents, modern highways that allow us to communicate ( both voice and data)almost in real time . Over the past twenty years, a vast network of thesecables has been built across the oceansand along the coasts, with dramatic effects on the lives of people of allconditions. India´s IT revolution would have been unthinkable without them. Infact, as Thomas Friedman points out in his bestselling book, The World is Flat: A Short History of Globalization in the 21st Century, India benefitted doublyfrom them. In the first place, through their installation by the company GlobalCrossing, that pioneered them in the nineties. And then by the acquisition ofthese cables by Indian companies like Reliance at rock-bottom prices afterGlobal Crossing went bankrupt.
Yet, a look at a world map with the lay-outof these fiber optic cables shows an anomaly Though they connect much of theworld, there is not a single one directly linking up Asia with South America (or Latin America, for that matter). As we have seen previously, over the pastdecade-and-a-half, trade and investment flows between Asia and Latin Americahave soared, and China has been very much at the center of it, accounting forabout half of these nearly half-a-trillion dollars worth of trade. Ironically,though, Internet communications between Latin American countries and China needto be routed through North America. At a time when South-South economicexchanges are more significant than North-South ones, this needs to change.
During his recent visit to China, Chile´sVice Minister of Telecommunications, Mr Pedro Huichalaf signed an MOU with hisChinese counterpart at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC),Mr Lin Nianxu, that includes acommitment to a feasibility study of a trans-Pacific fiber optic cable thatwould link up China with Chile, perhaps from Shanghai to Valparaíso. Chile is the country with the highest Internetpenetration in Latin America ( with over 70 per cent, and 127 per cent mobilepenetration rate) and ideally positioned as a digital hub for the rest of theregion. The explosive growth of e-commerce ( 360 million people today engage incross-border e-commerce) between Asia ( mainly China) and Latin America andother exchanges across the Pacific, means that existing cables ( cumbersomely routed via the NorthernHemisphere and then meandering all the way down to South America) will bestretched to capacity.
China itself is making the transition fromits position as the world´s factory to that of an ever more central hub forthese data flows, the driving force of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It isnow ranked 7th in the world in the MGI Connected Index, up from 25th a fewyears ago. It is thus well placed to drive such an ambitious project, thatwould entail laying 19.000 km of fiber optic cable across the world´s largestocean, for which Chinese companies have the necessary cutting- edge technology.
Such a project would also give a necessaryimpetus to links between Asia and Latin America, at a time when the end of thecommodities super-cycle and the flattening of trade in goods more generally hasput a damp on trans-Pacific trade ( global trade in goods as a share of worldGDP has declined from 26.6% in 2007 to 24.6% in 2014). As China prioritizes innovation and servicesas the drivers of her own economy over the next five years, Latin Americancountries should keep in mind the implications of this for their own wayforward. Yet, until now, Latin America´sfocus on the export of commodities and its relatively peripheral condition ininternational connectedness has meant that the region has not been able tobenefit as much as it could from international data flows.
The One Belt/One Road initiative, the AsianInvestment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) and the New Development ( BRICS) Bank are all projects that show China´scommitment to infrastructure development in the Global South. Highways,railways and maritime routes have been highlighted until now as likelycenterpieces of their initial project portfolio, and there is little doubt thatthey are all badly needed. Yet, as important as physical infrastructureprojects are, we must also consider the imperatives of globalization´s newphase, one that has cross-border data flows as the main driver.
By linking up Asia and Latin America, sucha trans-Pacific fiber optic cable between China and Chile would do much to spurgrowth and development on both sides of the Pacific Basin.