Argentina’s New President Intends To Join the Belt and Road Initiative

Dec. 16, 2019 (EIRNS)—In a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s envoy to his Dec. 10 inauguration, Argentina’s new President Alberto Fernández indicated his intention of joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). According to the Dec. 15 daily Perfil, Fernández told Arken Imirbaki, vice-chairman of Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, that he’s very interested. Note too, that Xi Jinping has extended an invitation to Fernández to visit China.

Sources from the office of Foreign Minister Felipe Sola, who attended the meeting, told Perfil “We’ll join the Belt and Road in the future. We’re very interested.” The Fernández government is reportedly prepared to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to this effect soon. The Chinese Embassy in Buenos Aires told Perfil it is optimistic that the new Argentina government is open to improving bilateral relations, which former President Mauricio Macri had downgraded, and indicated it will work with Argentina “so it can participate in the Belt and Road.”

Among other subjects discussed at the meeting was the construction of a fourth Argentine nuclear reactor, which China is willing to finance for $9 billion on very favorable terms.

It is noteworthy that Argentina’s new ambassador to Beijing is Sinologist Sabino Vaca Narvaja, who is an enthusiast of the BRI, and recommends that Argentina quickly sign an MOU. In a Nov. 17 article for “El Cohete a la Luna” website, Vaca Narvaja observed that being part of the BRI “can broaden our possibilities of financing and investment in some vectors that are important for national development, especially in the small and medium-sized business sector.”

Vaca Narvaja proposes that Ibero-American nations strengthen regional integration and function as a continental bloc, so as to “take advantage of China’s new global strategy.” As an example, he points to the bioceanic railroad (traversing Bolivia) which, once completed, will represent a strategic area of productive integration and trade that will benefit several countries in the region by allowing them to export products via the Pacific to Asia much more efficiently and cheaply.