OBELA Analysis

Throughout the world, the effects of neoliberal policies have exhausted society. Except in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, since the late 1980s, economic policy in Latin America has been based on the free market.

The economic balances are ambiguous, with successive financial crises, high income concentration and social exclusion along with declining primary export growth, decade by decade since 1990.

Social balances are even worse in terms of privatization of public goods such as education, health, and the deterioration of salaries, quality of employment and pensions. The October protests in Ecuador, Chile, Haiti and Argentina express a general feeling of fed up with the economic policy model.

The energy transition is a process of structural change of energy sources. China transits its energy matrix in electricity generation by means of energy called clean, such as: solar, wind, hydroelectric, cellulose and even nuclear.

Electricity generation in the Asian country is given, still, mainly by coal. However, solar energy has average annual rates of 42% from 1995 to 2004, and from 2006 onwards to 55% average; and the hydraulics presents rates of 8% and 11% respectively.

The growing expansion of the solar panel trade, and investments in the hydroelectric and electrical distribution sectors, to Latin America give the signal that it is interested in the region as a space to dispute the US energy trade and displace gasoline and oil

China is an increasingly important partner for the countries of the region, now in trade and investment, especially in energy in South America. China's foreign direct investment (FDI) in electricity distributors in the region is noteworthy.
Despite the dominant U.S. influence in Latin America, China is slowly increasing its economic relationship with the entire region. Its economic expansion strategy is divided into three: trade flows; capital flows in the form of FDI; and the novelty is the establishment of productive enclaves.
China's presence in Latin America is a challenge to the U.S. domination of the region that it has maintained throughout the twentieth century with invasions and economic policies that have retarded growth to levels never recorded since macroeconomic data were available.