From Bureau V (Latin American Affairs), International Department, CPC Central Committee

POLITICAL SITUATION IN LATIN AMERICA: SEVERAL TRENDS OF DEVELOPMENT

ZENG XIANGWEI

From Bureau V (Latin American Affairs), International Department, CPC Central Committee

Against the backdrop of profound readjustment of international political pattern as well as difficult recovery of global economy, the political situation in Latin America developed with an obvious feature of“left-wing declining and right-wing rising” in 2016. A series of events have taken place since the end of 2015. The left-wing political party that had ruled in Argentina for successive 12 years lost in general election. President Rousseff of Brazil was impeached out of the office. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela faced with a deposing poll launched by the opposition after it lost control over the parliament. President Morales of Bolivia did not get a favorable result of the referendum seeking for his re-election. President Correa of Ecuador was forced to give up the 2017 general election because of the re-election bill approved by the parliament. President Bachelet of Chile suffered from continuous low support rate and the ruling left-wing party lost even in municipal elections. The right-wing parties, however, have regained power in Argentina, Brazil and Peru with successful beginning of ruling by rightwing new administrations in both Argentina and Peru. How will the Latin-America situation develop? And will the future situation bring about major negative impact on China's relations with Latin-American states?

DECLINING YET NOT DEFEATED LEFT-WING STILL IN FIERCE AND STALEMATING GAMING WITH RIGHT-WING

The representative election system is adopted in all Latin-American countries except for Cuba. It is very normal that the left-wing and right-wing political forces win elections consecutively. The current round of political readjustment is an inevitable trend against the background of regional economic depression as well as the increase of wear and tear of left-wing parties after years of ruling. Nevertheless, this trend does not mean the complete failure of the left-wing. The gaming between the leftwing and the right-wing is still fierce and stalemating and will remain such a state in a considerable period of time.

Firstly, the will-be-strong-yet-notstrong-enough right-wing parties have benefited from people's usual pursuit for changing, and to some extend their victory has been a balancing to the earlier rising of the left-wing ones. Once in power, the right-wing parties are also faced with the pressure of depressed world economy and descending regional economy. It is a very difficult mission to advance structural transformation for economic recovery. The substantial cut-off of the social welfare adopted by the previous left-wing administrations will certainly touch off public resentment. As a result, the right-wing parties are also faced a dilemma of making choice between efficiency and fairness. Therefore, it's hard for them to adopt bold measures for a rapid and all-round economic turnover.

Secondly, the declining-yet-notdefeated left-wing parties are still holding steady ruling position in Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Salvador and Bolivia although they have lost power in some big countries. President Ortega of Nicaragua got re-elected indisputably in November 2016. The Ecuador Ruling Party Alliance PAIS is fully confident and assured of winning the 2017 general election and ruling for another term. The National Regeneration Movement of Mexico has maintained a strong momentum of rising. The Broad Left Front of Peru and the “Autonomous Left” of Chile have emerged un-expectedly. All those above testify that the left-wing trend of thought is by no means “out-of-date”. Moreover, during their rule in the past decade, their remarkable achievement in advocating social fairness and justice are unneglectable. Therefore, those left-wing forces still enjoy considerable support by the people although they are out of power, and with rather strong power in the parliaments and local governments, they still have important influence on the political situation.

Venezuela's parliamentaccused the governmentof “violating the constitution” by suspending the referendum process. The picture shows supporters of the Venezuelan government protesting against the convening of a special session by the parliament in the capital city of Caracas on October 23, 2016.

Thirdly, drawing lessons from their bitter experience, the left-wing parties are having profound self-examinations. On the 22nd annual meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum and the 3rd Conference of Latin-American Progressive Forces respectively convened in San Salvador, capital of Salvador in June 2016 and in Quito, the capital of Ecuador in September the same year, the left-wing political parties and organizations had pragmatic discussions on the situation and tasks and formed important consensus on future direction and goals of action. The left-wing forces still have room for development if they could unite among themselves and readjust their policies after learning from past lessons.

GRIM REALITY THAT MAY BRING BOTH LEFTWING AND RIGHT-WING CLOSER TO THE MIDDLE COURSE

During their governance in more than ten years, the left-wing parties in Latin America have made energetic exploration for the replacement of neo-liberalism. Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia respectively put forward the ideologies of “the 21st-Century Socialism”, the “Good Living Socialism” and the “Community Socialism”, seeking for building a humane, equal and just society. They have all gained broad recognition by the low-and-middle-class people for remarkable achievement of reform.

The left-wing governments definitely have adopted some biased and mistaken policies, such as social investment not suitable to development stage, economic policies that failed to properly handle the relationship between “cake making” and “cake sharing” and too much market intervention that has hurt the productivity, to name a few. Most countries have failed in seizing the economic “golden decade”and advancing structural reform in a timely and firm way, resulting in theeconomic declining and social projects difficult to continue year after year since the international financial crisis occurred.

Though still with defects, the above-mentioned socialist ideological trends in their prime in the past decade have changed the social structure and class layout in Latin America that had been formed in nearly one century, and have profoundly influenced the political ecology and public opinion in the region. Nowadays, the left-wing leaders in Latin America all believe that the foundation for left-wing parties to stand from the right-wing ones is to pursue social justice and carry forward reform of income distribution, with which they will continue in the future. At present, the chronicle social problems in the region including polarization between rich and poor as well as inequality have not been solved fundamentally, and have even got worse against the backdrop of economic depression. However, with the still existed social foundation for their policies and political views, the leftwing parties will restore their popularity after reflection and readjustment.

Although the setbacks of the leftwing trends have given some space to the right-wing trends, the traditional right-wing trends embodied by conservatism, liberalism and Christian democratism have continued to decline. A number of emerging right-wing trends have become the main body of current regional authorities. Following the core proposal of neo-liberalism, they have restarted market-oriented reform to restore economic health and vitality. Meanwhile, they emphasize on social justice through “positive” readjustment instead of totally abandoning the left-wing social policies, so as to change their image of being conservative to the utmost. At the same time, the relatively mild social democratism has flourished in diversified orientations, and due to its success in Chile, Uruguay and Mexico will very probably become the regional mainstream trend in the coming time.

Generally speaking, both left-wing and right-wing are minimizing the influence of ideology and getting closer to the middle position in words and deeds. It has been a practical choice for most governments to seek a wellbalanced, mild and pragmatic middle course between economy and people's livelihood, between government and marker as well as between domestic industries and foreign investment.

POLITICAL PATTERN TURNING RIGHT WHICH WILL FACILITATE“WESTWARDS” FOREIGN RELATIONS OF CERTAIN COUNTRIES

Generally pro-west in their ideologies, the middle- and right-wing forces in Latin-American countries played a card of “balanced diplomacy” right after assuming power. They claimed that they would make “correct” the foreign policies adopted by the previous leftwing regimes by strengthening dependence on western countries and upgrade these countries' position in their own foreign affairs. However, different from the previous ones, this round of pro-west tendency aims at improving their relations with western developed countries which suffered from deterioration under the left-wing ruling and allowing them to return to normal, thus seeking diversified economic and trade benefits. Under the background of transition between the old and new administration in the US as well as uncertainty of Trump's attention to Latin America, the middle-and-right –wing governments in Latin America will carry out diversified and balanced pragmatic cooperation with other countries and make significant efforts to further develop their relations with important developing countries including China, Russia, India as well as some African and Arabic countries. Moreover, based on historical memories, both the leftwing and right-wing regimes all keep alert with the hegemonism and interventionism from outside, and continue to uphold independent foreign policies.

RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA AND LATINAMERICAN COUNTRIES STEPPING INTO NEW STAGE OF READJUSTMENT AND BREAKTHROUGH WITH OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES COEXISTED

As the world second largest economy and an important economic and trade partner of Latin-American countries, China is among the top priorities for both left-wing and rightwing regimes when making realistic choice in foreign relations. As said by the secretary-general of the Latin-American Association for Integration, against the background of difficult recovery of world economy and declining regional economy, no regime will reduce its dependence on China. Therefore, the general orientation of China-Latin America friendly cooperation will remain unchanged. The rightwing president of Peru made China his destination of first overseas visit upon taking office, which serves as a strong testimony. Not long ago, President Xi Jinping made his third visit to Latin America as head of state, which has been a fruitful one with many bright scenes. A new round of “China fever”rises in the region. China-Latin America cooperation enjoys great potential. This visit has not only consolidated the traditional friendship between China and relevant countries in the region, but also improved and perfected the overall arrangement of the cooperation between China and Latin America, and will for certain push the comprehensive partnership between China and Latin America based on equality, mutual benefit and shared development to a new step, so that people of both sides will join hands and harvest substantial benefits in forging a community of common destiny.

By Tao Xuri

By Tim Ireland

10.19422/j.cnki.cn10-1398/d.2017.01.014