The Tropical Silk Road : The Future of China in South America / edited by Paul Amar [and four others].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Amar, Paul (Paul Edouard), 1968- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Investments, Chinese--South America.

Investments, Chinese.

China--Foreign economic relations--South America.

China.

South America--Economic conditions--21st century.

South America.

South America--Environmental conditions.

South America--Foreign economic relations--China.

South America--Social conditions--21st century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (436 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2023]

Summary:

This book captures an epochal juncture of two of the world's most transformative processes: the People's Republic of China's rapidly expanding sphere of influence across the global south and the disintegration of the Amazonian, Cerrado, and Andean biomes. The intersection of these two processes took another step in April 2020, when Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a "New Health Silk Road" agenda of aid and investment that would wind through South America, extending the Eurasian-African "Belt and Road Initiative" to the Latin American tropics. Through thirty short essays, this volume brings together an impressive array of contributors, from economists, anthropologists, and political scientists to Black, feminist, and Indigenous community organizers, Chinese stakeholders, environmental activists, and local journalists to offer a pathbreaking analysis of China's presence in South America. As cracks in the progressive legacy of the Pink Tide and the failures of ecocidal right-wing populisms shape new political economies and geopolitical possibilities, this book provides a grassroots-based account of a post-US centered world order, and an accompanying map of the stakes for South America that highlights emerging voices and forms of resistance.

Contents:

Intro

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Contributors

Introduction: China Stepping Out, the Amazon Biome, and South American Populism

Part 1: Global Asia, New Imaginaries, and Media Visibilities

1.1. China's State and Social Media Narratives about Brazil during the COVID-19 Pandemic

1.2. Cracks in the Coca Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Project: Infrastructures and Disasters from a Masculine Vision of Development

1.3. Brazil and China's "Inevitable Marriage"? Post-Bolsonaro Futures and Beijing's Shift from North America to South America

1.4. The China-Ecuador Relationship: From Correa's Neodevelopmentalist "Reformism" to Moreno's "Postreformism" during China's Credit Crunch (2006-2021)

1.5. China Studies in Brazil: Leste Vermelho and Innovations in South-South Academic Partnership

1.6. Chinese Financing and Direct Foreign Investment in Ecuador: An Interests and Benefits Perspective on Relations between States through the Lens of the Win-Win Principle

Part 2: Indigenous Epistemologies and Maroon Modernities

2.1. An Indigenous Theory of Risk: The Cosmopolitan Munduruku Analyze Chinese Megaprojects at Tapajós-Teles Pires

2.2. Challenges for the Shuar in the Face of Globalization and Extractivism: Reflections from the Shuar Federation of Zamora Chinchipe

2.3. "Yes, We Do Know Why We Protest": Indigenous Challenges to Extractivism in Ecuador, Looking beyond the National Strike of October 2019

Part 3: Grassroots Perspectives on the Fragmentation of BRICS

3.1. From Elusiveness to Ideological Extravaganza: Gender and Sexuality in Brazil-China Relations

3.2. The Refraction of Chinese Capital in Amazonian Entrepôts and the Infrastructure of a Global Sacrifice Zone

3.3. "The Bank We Want": Chinese and Brazilian Activism around and within the BRICS New Development Bank.

3.4. Río Blanco: The Big Stumbling Block to the Advancement of China's Mining Interests in Ecuador

3.5. Protectionism for Business, Precarization for Labor: China's Investment-Protection Treaties and Community Struggles in the Latin American and Caribbean Region

Part 4: Logistics Regimes and Mining

4.1. A Mine, a Dam, and the Chinese-Ecuadorian Politics of Knowledge

4.2. Rafael Correa's Administration of Promises and the Impact of Its Policies on the Human Rights of Indigenous Groups

4.3. China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation in the Tapajós River "Logistics Corridor": A Case Study of Socioenvironmental Transformation in Brazil's Northeast

4.4. Deforestation, Enclosures, and Militias: The Logistics "Revolution" in the Port of Cajueiro, Maranhão

Part 5: Hydroelectrics and Railroads

5.1. Hungry and Backward Waters: Events, Actors, and Challenges Surrounding the Coca Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Project in Times of COVID-19

5.2. Electrification of Forest Biomes: Xingu-Rio Lines, Chinese Presence, and the Sociotechnological Impact of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam

5.3. Vanity Projects, Waterfall Implosions, and the Local Impacts of Megaproject Partnerships

5.4. "Yes We Do Exist": Ferrogrão Railway, Indigenous Voices in the Trail of Trade Corridors, and Building the Axis of "Brazilian Pragmatist Policy" toward China

5.5. Green Marketing Extractivism in the Amazon: Imaginaries of the Ministry versus Realities of the Land

Part 6: Race, Class, and Urban Geographies

6.1. Steel Industry's Legacies on the Outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and White Brazilian Capital-State Alliances: A Feminist Approach

6.2. Rio de Janeiro's Unruly Carbon Periphery: Community Entrepreneurs, Chinese Investors, and the Reappropriation of the Ruins of the COMPERJ Oil Port-and-Pipeline Megaproject.

6.3. From Cheap Credit to Rapid Frustration: China and Real Estate in Rio de Janeiro

6.4. The China-Ecuador Economic Relationship's Impact on Unemployment during the Administration of President Moreno

Part 7: Hybridity of Transnational Labor

7.1. Savage Factories of the Manaus Free Trade Zone: Chinese Investments in the Amazon and Social Impacts on Workers

7.2. National Development Priorities and Transnational Workplace Inequalities: Challenges for China's State-Sponsored Construction Projects in Ecuador

7.3. Rio's Phantom Dubai? Porto do Açu, Chinese Investments, and the Geopolitical Specter of Brazilian Mineral Booms

Index.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Amar, Paul The Tropical Silk Road

ISBN:

9781503633810

1503633810

OCLC:

1350572263