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Chapter 2. Methodology and Research Question
In terms of the rising influence that China had on Latin America, even though the quantitative changes of the economies matter, the qualitative factors such as political cultures of each country and its effect on poverty and inequality are also unavoidable.
As China had become superpower that had also expanded its influence globally, it had applied many different agents and institutions in various aspects. It would take piles of pages to even just touch the surface of the complicated phenomenon, thus this paper would mainly aim at it influence on the economic impacts that China had put on Latin America.
To sum up, as the narrative of the news article of China Daily (中國日報網)9, one of the media which subordinated the Chinese Communist Party, China is not only an important friend but also an economic development partner. Firstly, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has intensified exchanges between China and Latin America and reduced the distribution costs of goods and services. Secondly, different from the Western institutions, Chinese investment is not associated with the interference in Latin American countries' internal, including political, affairs. As a result, Chinese funding can be really used to improve the livelihoods of people in Latin America.
Thirdly, in addition to economic relations, Latin America and China have also been conducting various cultural interactions－about 4,000 professionals from Latin America visited China to receive further training in 2018 alone. This prospect of China’s narrative sounds pretty promising. However, it also raised my research question: do economic activities with China really improve people’s lives in Latin America?
In the first place of literature review, I would mention the direct influences and
9 China Daily Global. Jan. 11, 2021.
http://epaper.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202101/11/WS5ffb7d83a31099a23435323b.html
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indirect influences of China on Latin America. Also, I would not only introduce the existing academic theory of resource curse about the region, but also have a look if it had fit the essence of the economic activities between China and the region, even the various interactions between China and the sub-regions (Mexico, Central America, and South America).
In addition, in the next paragraph, I would peek the interdependence theory and liberalism, the definition of industrialization and the deindustrialization as well as the changes of China’s foreign policies for the theoretical basis for the whole thesis. For a further discussion about liberalism and making it clear about the essence of the rising power- China, I would start with a review of China’s ancient Middle Kingdom mentality which is pretty unique from the conventionally theoretical basis of realism and liberalism in terms of international relations. In the field of international relations, sometimes ideology and balance of power (the terms of realism) matter more than the performance of the global and international economic institutions (the symbols of liberalism). For instance, what shaped the identity of the countries in Latin America and what they have struggled with the United States (the anti-Americanism) play a crucial role in the relatively new economic boom with the rising power- China.
For other minds, owing to the end of the Cold War, the conflict of ideology had also ended up. Instead, the more general term- civilization had already replaced its previous dominant positions on international relations. Civilization is also more complex, even changeable and organic than ideology. Based on the famous thesis Clash of Civilizations by the renowned scholar, Samuel Huntington, in the post-Cold War era, civilization plays a vital role in strategic fields. It can also explain why the Chinese Communist regime is different from the Soviet Communist Party and the possibility to avoid the major war with the prospect of cooperation with the United States in pursuit of the well-being of the respective people under different
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civilizations.
In my opinion, China’s rising in Latin America could be seen as the reflection of the competition between the United States and China. Thus, I would also cite and summarize two articles to talk about the pros and cons of geopolitics, or on the other hands, the liberal capitalist democratic world order.
In the last part of the literature review, I would also summarize the statements and the data from the article written by the previous Singaporean ambassador in U.N.-
Kishore Mahbubani to look into one the dark sides of this liberal capitalist societies, and the leader of this kind of order- the United States would be used as the
representative case study.
As I have mentioned in the paragraph of the introduction, to illustrate the scope and the limitation of this research, I would address and analyze some quantitative data such as the commonly-used Gini Coefficient during 2003 and 2013 (after the China-boom) as the dependent variable of the income inequality which is usually the cause of the wealth inequality. Furthermore, it may also be more conspicuous than the total population under extreme poverty since the GDP of some Latin American countries are pretty high. On the other hand, I would also make trade volume (imports and exports with China) and Outward FDI flows from China as independent variables. To see the correlation between the variables, I would run two scatter plots. Furthermore, I would also organize a table about the prices of the main exported primary goods from Latin America to see the changes along time and know more about the timing that China had more obviously extended its economic influences on Latin American countries. It would also be important to additionally prove that these products were the most important ones in the China-Latin American trades, thus I would also produce a table about the top five imported and exported products to Latin America.
Nevertheless, these tables and figures might not be enough to unveil the interwoven
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phenomenon, so I would also do some qualitative research through case study of Chinese model of economic development, China’s trade with Brazil and Chile, the two biggest economic partners of China among Latin America for its abundance of the resources that China have craved at and their geographical location. These case studies would make the research more complete and with more details of the
historical, political, even cultural issues. In conclusion, I would like to make both the quantitative data analysis and the qualitative case study complementary to one another.
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