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International Area Studies Review
[ Article ]
International Area Studies Review - Vol. 29, No. 2, pp.135-158
ISSN: 2233-8659 (Print)
Print publication date 30 Jun 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69473/iasr.2026.29.2.135

Beyond the Neocolonial Label: Reassessing China’s Engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean

Qi Zhang* ; Joaquín Beltrán Antolín
Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain

Correspondence to: *Email: qi.zhang3@autonoma.cat

Abstract

China’s rise as a key economic partner to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has generated intense debate over whether its regional engagement constitutes neocolonialism, a debate that has reached analytical impasse. This article advances beyond the neocolonial label by applying a structured four-dimensional assessment, economic, cultural, technological, and political, against explicitly operationalized neocolonial criteria. Although China’s engagement produces identifiable asymmetries across all four dimensions, none satisfies the three constitutive conditions required for a neocolonial characterization as defined here. The article introduces the concept of “negotiated asymmetric interdependence” to describe what neither the neocolonial framework nor the official “win-win” narrative captures: a configuration in which structural power differentials are real and consequential, yet LAC states retain meaningful, if bounded, agency over the terms of engagement. It differentiates this concept from complex interdependence, asymmetric interdependence, dependency with agency, South–South cooperation, and post-hegemonic accounts of regional order, and grounds it in evidence spanning the high-exposure cases most favorable to the neocolonial thesis, within-case analyses of Ecuador’s oil-backed borrowing and the Las Bambas conflict, and the region’s largest economies, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.

Keywords:

China–LAC relations, Neocolonialism, South-South cooperation, Negotiated asymmetric interdependence, Dependency theory, Soft Power

AI Acknowledgment

Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were not used in any way to prepare, write, or complete essential authoring tasks in this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

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