Dilating the vista of the future

Costa Rica is the second country Xi visited on his trip to the Caribbean and Latin America, and it is the only country in Central America to have diplomatic relations with China. A politically stable country with a well-developed economy, Costa Rica will assume the rotating chair of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States next year and is likely to promote overall cooperation between Latin America and China.

China and Costa Rica established diplomatic ties in 2006 and signed a free trade agreement in 2011, and their relationship has the potential of becoming a model of bilateral cooperation. During Xi's visit to Costa Rica, the two sides signed agreements on economic and technological cooperation, quality inspection of pork products exported to China, construction of a joint oil refinery on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, and Chinese funding for the expansion of one of Costa Rica's strategic highways.

China supports Costa Rica's efforts to build a special economic zone, while the Costa Rican government welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in its country. In this regard, the two sides agreed to work for the establishment of a China-Latin America cooperation forum.

Xi's visits to countries which are small in size but important in diplomatic aspects reflect Beijing's renewed efforts to balance its diplomacy between developed and developing countries, "big" and "small" nations, and Eastern and Western hemispheres.

The new Chinese leadership's diplomatic moves reflect its emphasis on Latin America and the Caribbean countries, which have great potential for trade cooperation and can become China's strategic partners because of their common national interests, close development levels and similar global aspirations.

President Xi's visits to the Caribbean and Latin America, preceded by Vice-President Li's trip to South America, are part of China's multidimensional diplomatic layout for the region. Their trips, along with US President Barack Obama's visit to Mexico and Costa Rica in early May and US Vice-President Joe Biden's six-day tour of Latin America, which included Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia and Brazil, show the great importance they attach to the region.

After wrapping up his three-nation tour, Xi is now in California discussing with Obama the establishment of a new type of relationship between the two major powers, which is of great bilateral and global significance.

The author is a research scholar at the Institute of Latin American Studies, affiliated to the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

(China Daily 06/08/2013 page5)