Over the past two decades, China has ramped up its economic ties with nations across Latin America, but it is China’s rising influence in the region that has Washington increasingly concerned.
The growing threat China poses to the U.S. has moved ever forward in the American conscious as defense officials and lawmakers continue to monitor emerging trends from Beijing’s burgeoning relationships worldwide.
China’s quiet expansion in the southern hemisphere has increasingly caught the attention of U.S. defense officials and lawmakers, including Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, who last month drew attention to growing security threats emerging from Latin America.
In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Salazar told lawmakers that Argentina, along with nations like Venezuela and Bolivia, were allowing China to gain a military foothold in Latin America.
“[Chinese President] Xi Jinping has been to Latin America more times than President Obama, Trump and Biden combined in the last 10 years,” Salazar told lawmakers. “The Chinese are not here for trade. They’re here for war.”
The Florida congresswoman pointed to China’s sales of military equipment and arms to the region over the last decade and claimed that Argentina is now considering opening a Chinese fighter jet factory.
Argentina’s Ambassador to the U.S. Jorge Arguello rejected Salazar’s claims earlier this month as false and called them “absurd.”
However, Salazar also drew attention to a Deep Space Station the size of “400 football fields” in the middle of Argentina’s Patagonia desert as another chief security concern.
“I am sure the Chinese are very interested in studying the stars and every constellation. But the problem is that Argentina has no idea what’s going on there because the Chinese don’t let them in,” she said before questioning whether this program has anything to do with the recent Chinese “balloon” activity over the U.S.
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