Yang Han

Charge d’Af­faires ad in­ter­im

of Em­bassy of Chi­na

On May 13, the Fourth Min­is­te­r­i­al Meet­ing of the Chi­na-CELAC Fo­rum con­vened suc­cess­ful­ly in Bei­jing, with Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping join­ing lead­ers from Colom­bia, Brazil, and Chile in ad­dress­ing the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny. For­eign min­is­ters and se­nior del­e­gates from Chi­na and Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean (LAC) na­tions gath­ered to chart col­lab­o­ra­tive strate­gies, adopt­ing the Bei­jing De­c­la­ra­tion and the Joint Ac­tion Plan for Co­op­er­a­tion in Key Ar­eas (2025-2027).

No­tably, the Chi­na-CELAC Fo­rum—an an­chor for mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial en­gage­ment be­tween Chi­na and LAC coun­tries—marked its 10th year of for­mal op­er­a­tion. Over this decade:

• Strate­gic co­or­di­na­tion has deep­ened: Chi­na and LAC states have stead­fast­ly sup­port­ed each oth­er’s core in­ter­ests and ma­jor con­cerns, op­pos­ing hege­mo­ny and pow­er pol­i­tics while safe­guard­ing the col­lec­tive in­ter­ests of de­vel­op­ing na­tions.

• Prac­ti­cal co­op­er­a­tion has flour­ished: Last year’s bi­lat­er­al trade hit a record $518.4 bil­lion. More than 20 re­gion­al coun­tries have joined the Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive, with land­mark projects like Pe­ru’s Chan­cay Port and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate com­plet­ed. New fron­tiers in co­op­er­a­tion—en­com­pass­ing new en­er­gy, elec­tric ve­hi­cles, and dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy—are thriv­ing.

• Peo­ple-to-peo­ple ties have strength­ened: Chi­na has award­ed 17,000 gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ships and pro­vid­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13,000 train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in Chi­na for LAC na­tion­als. Ini­tia­tives such as the Chi­na-LAC Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Part­ner­ship and the Chi­na-LAC Cul­tur­al Ex­change Year have fos­tered mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing, with “LAC Fever” in Chi­na and “Chi­na Fever” in the re­gion both on the rise.

These achieve­ments un­der­score that Chi­na and LAC coun­tries are ad­vanc­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture—one root­ed in equal­i­ty, dri­ven by mu­tu­al ben­e­fit, en­er­gised by open­ness, and ded­i­cat­ed to im­prov­ing peo­ple’s lives. This part­ner­ship demon­strates en­dur­ing vi­tal­i­ty and holds im­mense promise for the fu­ture.

Against the back­drop of ac­cel­er­at­ing changes un­seen in a cen­tu­ry, with ris­ing pro­tec­tion­ism and chal­lenges to peace, the meet­ing sent a pow­er­ful mes­sage of uni­ty from the Glob­al South.

As a high­light, Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping an­nounced the launch of Five Pro­grammes—Sol­i­dar­i­ty, De­vel­op­ment, Civil­i­sa­tion, Peace, and Peo­ple-to-Peo­ple Con­nec­tiv­i­ty—to shape a new co­op­er­a­tion blue­print. Chi­na aims to lever­age this meet­ing to deep­en the sub­stan­tive de­vel­op­ment of the Chi­na-LAC com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture, con­tribut­ing “Chi­na-LAC strength” to re­gion­al progress and glob­al de­vel­op­ment.

First, a joint strength for safe­guard­ing in­de­pen­dence, peace, and se­cu­ri­ty: Chi­na and LAC coun­tries should firm­ly sup­port each oth­er’s core in­ter­ests and up­hold the ex­plo­ration of de­vel­op­ment paths suit­ed to their re­spec­tive na­tion­al con­di­tions. Chi­na stands ready to work with re­gion­al coun­tries to im­ple­ment the Glob­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive, sup­port sta­bil­i­ty in Haiti, deep­en co­op­er­a­tion and di­a­logue on cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, law en­force­ment, an­ti-cor­rup­tion, and nar­cotics con­trol, joint­ly com­bat all forms of ter­ror­ism and transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime, and pro­vide ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing as­sis­tance to LAC coun­tries for dis­as­ter man­age­ment and mit­i­ga­tion.

Sec­ond, a joint strength for pro­mot­ing de­vel­op­ment and shared pros­per­i­ty: An­chored in the Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive, co­op­er­a­tion will deep­en in in­fra­struc­ture, agri­cul­ture, clean en­er­gy, 5G, and AI. Chi­na will in­crease im­ports of LAC goods, en­cour­age cor­po­rate in­vest­ment, and ex­tend a 66-bil­lion-yuan RMB cred­it line. Over three years, it will of­fer 3,500 gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ships, 10,000 train­ing slots, and launch 300 “small and beau­ti­ful” liveli­hood projects. As a first step, visa ex­emp­tions will be grant­ed to cit­i­zens of Brazil, Ar­genti­na, Chile, Pe­ru, and Uruguay, with plans to ex­pand the pol­i­cy.

Third, a joint strength for up­hold­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and jus­tice: Chi­na sup­ports LAC coun­tries’ ef­forts to in­crease their in­flu­ence on the mul­ti­lat­er­al stage. Chi­na stands firm­ly with LAC coun­tries to safe­guard the UN-cen­tred in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem and the in­ter­na­tion­al law-based or­der, sup­port a fair, trans­par­ent, and rule-based mul­ti­lat­er­al trad­ing sys­tem, and voice jus­tice in in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al af­fairs. Chi­na will work with LAC coun­tries to hold a Chi­na-LAC civil­i­sa­tion­al di­a­logue, im­ple­ment the Glob­al Civil­i­sa­tion Ini­tia­tive, and nur­ture cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment through ex­change and mu­tu­al learn­ing.

As a Chi­nese say­ing goes, “a bo­som friend afar brings a dis­tant land near.” Trinidad and To­ba­go was not on­ly one of the first coun­tries to es­tab­lish diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Chi­na in the Caribbean but al­so the first Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­try in the re­gion to join the Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive. Chi­na has al­ways viewed T&T as a good friend and re­li­able part­ner and stands ready to work with T&T’s new gov­ern­ment to car­ry for­ward friend­ship, im­ple­ment meet­ing con­sen­sus, and deep­en high-qual­i­ty Belt and Road co­op­er­a­tion. We are com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing new growth dri­vers in eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, and liveli­hood im­prove­ment to sus­tain bi­lat­er­al ties and strength­en Chi­na-LAC win-win col­lab­o­ra­tion.