Asia's 21st Century Relations with Latin America

Dr. Ellis will speak on Latin America and the Caribbean's complex and evolving engagement with the nations of Asia in the context of economic, fiscal, and other stresses arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, and other dynamics. He will examine not only the region's ties with the People's Republic of China (PRC), but also those with Japan, South Korea, and India, among others. He will address growing PRC economic engagement with the region, including bilateral trade patterns and the question of who benefits from value chains integrating the two regions. He will also address different patterns of PRC-based companies in select economic and technology sectors, the role of the PRC government in the commercial, institutional, space, security, and political domains, the question of PRC "soft power" and the impacts of that engagement on the region. He will examine likely changes in those patterns in both the near and medium term. Dr. Ellis will further compare PRC engagement in the region with that of other Asian actors, and how leveraging the diversity of commercial offerings and government engagement by democratic partners such as Japan, Korea and India may strategically benefit Latin American and Caribbean countries, and provide policy opportunities for the US as it engages with the region.

This event will be livestreamed via Zoom with this link:
https://duke.is/529za

A light lunch will be served.