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2012 China Q. 178 (2012)
A View from Afar: How Columbia Sees China

handle is hein.journals/chnaquar2012 and id is 182 raw text is: 178 A View from Afar: How Colombia Sees China* Ariel C. Armonyt Abstract The fast-paced landing of China in Latin America raises the question of how such a complex relationship is being built from little previous contact. Focusing on Colombia's printed media, the article examines the construc- tion of China's public image. A Janus-faced view of China is initially revealed: a growing power perceived as an auspicious trade partner on the one hand; a troubling new actor in the international context on the other. Further analysis shows shades of grey that reveal a multifaceted, continu- ously evolving image of China that tells us much about both countries. The depiction of China's rising power, whose direction and purpose suggest a paradigm of modernity without enlightment, brings light to Colombia's unsettled accounts with democracy and development. The article sets a launching pad for further research on such mutually constitutive relationships. Keywords: China's image; Latin America; Colombia; Japan; news media; human rights; democracy China had a minimal presence in Latin America only two decades ago. Today it has become impossible to talk about Latin America in an international context without mentioning China. Since the turn of the century, Sino-Latin American trade has grown by a factor of ten. In 2000 China ranked 16th as a buyer of Latin American and Caribbean exports and ninth as a source of imports. Less than a decade later, in 2008, China ranked second as both' - it is nowadays Latin America's second trading partner and source of foreign direct investment, behind only the United States.2 * I would like to thank Nicolas Guillermo Velisquez for his research assistance. I appreciate the com- ments from Margaret Crahan, colleagues at the University of Miami's Political Science Department's Faculty Colloquium, and the participants at the conference From the Great Wall to the New World: China and Latin America in the 21st century, Asia Institute, UCLA, 15-16 April 2011. t University of Miami. Email: armony@miami.edu I Osvaldo Rosales, El dinamismo de China y Asia emergente: oportunidades y desaflos para America Latina y el Caribe, in Jos6 Antonio Alonso and Alicia Bircena (eds.), Retos y oportunidades ante la crisis (Madrid: Agencia Espafiola de Cooperaci6n Internacional para el Desarrollo - Fundaci6n Carolina, 2010), p. 109. 2 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2008 (Santiago: ECLAC, 2009). @ The China Quarterly, 2012 doi:10.1017/S305741011001536

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