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A Chinese-built megaport in Peru could be used by Beijing’s navy, a top US general has said, highlighting the security risks to the US from “Belt and Road” projects in Latin America.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to inaugurate the $1.3bn Chancay port on the Pacific coast when he visits Peru for a summit in mid-November, amid growing concerns among US security officials that the facility’s size, depth and strategic location make it suitable to host Chinese warships.
China’s Cosco Shipping, which has been building the port with a local junior partner, will be the sole operator when it opens after Peru dropped a lawsuit challenging its exclusive status.
“It could be used as a dual-use facility, it’s a deepwater port,” said General Laura Richardson, outgoing chief of US Southern Command, which covers Latin America and the Caribbean. “[The navy] could use it, absolutely . . . this is a playbook that we’ve seen play out in other places, not just in Latin America.”
Twenty-two Latin American and Caribbean countries have signed up to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s hallmark project to build infrastructure abroad, as China expands its footprint in a region once labelled as the “backyard” of the US.
China is now the biggest trading partner for South America and a major investor in critical minerals, transport and energy projects.
“If you look at all the countries which have these projects, they just happen to be around all these strategic . . . locations or sea lines of communication for global commerce,” Richardson told the Financial Times. “You have to ask yourself: ‘why all this investment in these kinds of things?’”
A four-star general who flew Black Hawk helicopters and served in Afghanistan, Richardson has frequently warned against Chinese and Russian security threats in the region during her three-year stint at Miami-based Southern Command, which ends on November 7.
In April, Richardson visited Ushuaia, Argentina’s southernmost city, where China had proposed building a port to supply the Antarctic. Following what Argentine media reported as strong lobbying from Washington, Buenos Aires opted instead for a US-led facility and also put on ice Chinese plans for a multi-use port 200km up the coast at Río Grande.
Richardson said she had been “absolutely worried” about the Chinese proposal in Ushuaia because of its strategic location close to the Strait of Magellan and the Drake Passage.
Beijing insists that commitment to mutual benefit is a cornerstone of its overseas projects, an approach it contrasts with what it calls Washington’s pursuit of hegemony and geopolitical advantage in Latin America. China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The general said she remained concerned about Chinese and Russian activity in Cuba, which has included building spy stations to eavesdrop on the US, and Russian warships visiting Havana. “It’s in the red zone for our homeland . . . We have a lot of nefarious and malign activity and we have no place for it in the Caribbean and Latin America.”
She has also tried to alert Latin American governments to the security risks of adopting 5G infrastructure from Chinese companies such as Huawei, which could open “back doors” into countries’ sensitive data and facilitate hacking or the theft of military or commercial secrets.
Huawei has said there is “no comprehensible evidence or plausible scenarios” in which its technology would pose a security risk.
“Digital authoritarianism — that’s absolutely what China is doing,” she said. “You’ve got a Communist government selling these 5G solutions. They don’t respect the rights of their own people and we somehow think they will do that for [us]”.
The general accused Beijing of “holding countries at risk” in the region when they were desperate for technology, deepwater ports or energy investment. “This is how they get their hooks into the countries,” she said.
In August 2022, India and the US protested when the Yuan Wang 5, a Chinese naval vessel with antennas used for tracking and surveillance, docked at Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port. The Beijing-funded port was taken over by a Chinese company after Colombo defaulted on debt payments.
China denies the Yuan Wang 5 is a spy ship but agreed it would not conduct research while it was at Hambantota.
Richardson said the US and allies needed to counter Beijing’s growing clout by offering Latin American governments commercially attractive alternatives. She said large-scale economic assistance, akin to the 1948 US Marshall Plan, which provided cash to rebuild postwar Europe, was needed in Latin America.
“The [Chinese] come in with big bags of cash and the BRI and they look like they’re saving the day because countries don’t have a choice,” she said.
“Strategic competition matters. Democracy is under attack and we have to be investing and competing on critical infrastructure projects for like-minded democracies.”
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