HEIDI FISKE | Mexico – A Vector for Chinese Aggression? (Post 2 of 2)

President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico (L) and
President Xi Jinping of China, September 2017.

This is Part 2 of a two-part guest post by Heidi S. Fiske. The first post is here. 

Aggression by a foreign power, using a Latin American base, brought America to the verge of nuclear war in 1962.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Seared into the memory of all who lived through it, 56 years ago the United States came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war with Russia. It was so close, in fact, that, on October 27, 1962, then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara declared: “This may be the last Saturday I ever see.”

It began on October 14, 1962, when a US plane spotted a Soviet missile being assembled on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy convened a very small team to consider what to do. Invade? Bomb? 

He decided on an embargo, hoping to keep Russian warheads from reaching the island (fruitlessly, we later learned – the Russians already had 162 tactical and strategic nuclear warheads there). On October 22, a tense American public listened as Kennedy announced the blockade on television, and said that the United States was prepared to use military force to protect its security. After another fevered week of negotiations, the Soviets backed down and removed the missiles.

But let’s consider what our position would be today if a hostile power had major bases in Mexico.

A Weakened United States and a Strong Mexico

Cuba is a small island 90 miles to our south. It was and is poor. We had robust international alliances all over the world. Our national debt was $298 billion, less than 10 percent of our GDP. While the Cold War was expensive, we were not engaged in any hot war. President Kennedy was schooled in history, hard-working and a very bright man with an outstanding cabinet.

By contrast, Mexico is the 15th largest economy in the world. It is smack up against us for 2,000 miles, and has territorial waters that abut ours in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. And we have a different sort of President now, presiding over a cabinet whose divisions and shortcomings are legendary. Our national debt is $20 trillion, 106 percent of GDP – before the new tax reductions and budget take effect.

Thus if we found ourselves facing Chinese aggression via Mexico, we would be weaker than we were in 1962. And China would have far more territory, much closer to us, from which to launch a cyber or military attack.

How likely is it that China might gain a military foothold in Mexico? The camel’s nose is its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Belt and Road

China’s BRI may be the largest international investment project in history. Xi Jinping announced its two parts in the fall of 2013 – the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), and the sea-based Maritime Silk Road (MSR). 

The BRI goal is to create infrastructure that connects developing countries. Less than five years old, it already covers more than 68 countries, equivalent to 65 percent of the world's population and 40 percent of global GDP.

This may be a peculiarly Chinese way to seek influence. In On China, Henry Kissinger points to the stunning fact that, for 18 of the past 20 centuries, China had the highest GDP in the world. Its  superb communications and roads linked markets among its vast population and territory. BRI is just such an initiative, this time on the world stage.

Today, add China’s growing pre-eminence in AI and other key technologies to the mix, and its increasing use of authoritarian power to curtail what its citizens can see. “Technology in the service of an authoritarian regime is a very very dangerous thing,” says Robert Kaplan, author of the just-released The Return of Marco Polo’s World, which looks, among other things, at BRI.

While BRI was originally designed to foster economic cooperation with developing countries in Eurasia and Africa, last May it was extended to Latin America. In January 2018, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum in Santiago and formally invited the 33 nations represented there to join forces. CELAC, formed in 2011, does not include the United States or Canada. Pointedly, Chile’s Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz used the occasion to say that “This meeting represents a categoric repudiation of protectionism and unilateralism.”

China had already become the most significant new force in Latin America and the Caribbean. At the World Economic Forum in 2017, Angel Melguizo, Chief Economist in the Latin American Unit, OECD Development Centre, noted:

“China has become one of Latin America’s key trading partners. In fact, it is the most important partner for Brazil, Chile and Peru. Trade between China and Latin America has multiplied 22 times since 2000, a stark contrast to Latin American trade with the United States and Europe, which merely doubled in the same time period.” 

The scale of potential BRI projects is indicated by a proposed 19,000-kilometer trans-Pacific fiber-optic internet cable from China to Chile.

Though wary of China’s growing role in this hemisphere, the United States seems strangely insouciant about it, with Trump now exercising what Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass wryly dubs “the Withdrawal Doctrine.”

To be sure, US-Mexican ties run deep and broad. There is a long history of friendship, cross-border businesses, and alliances. Many families on both sides of the border, at all socio-economic levels, are bi-national. And we share some important history and cultural roots, especially in the southwest.

But will this be enough to counter a Chinese juggernaut patiently building in Latin America? “Washington,” says Antonio Hsiang, Professor and Director of the Center for Latin American Economy and Trade Studies at Chihlee University of Technology, Taiwan. “is now in danger of damaging its core interests through neglect.”

Looking Down the New Silk Road

BRI is supposedly peaceful in intent. At his talk to the CELAC Forum, Foreign Minister Wang said:

“China will always stay committed to the path of peaceful development and the win-win strategy of opening up, and stands ready to share development dividends with all countries.”

But this is spoken by a top official of the country that is building military bases in territory it does not own, in the South China Sea. How difficult would it be to convert major infrastructure installations in Mexico into bases for spying, cyber attacks or even a hot war against us?

This is the real menace from Mexico. And it means that Trump’s attacks on Mexico are 180 degrees away from what strategic considerations would dictate.