China and the New Geopolitics of Climate Multilateralism in Latin America

The role of China in the world and in Latin America is rapidly changing. From being a fast-developing nation, scouring the world for raw materials and markets for its own industrialization, it has set out to be a global leader, also on climate change mitigation. This has become a geopolitical issue, particularly since it involves energy and land use change. China is seeking to secure its interests through building multilateral coalitions and striking bilateral agreements that allow the combination of pursuing their own geopolitical interests and climate mitigation goals and tying a broad set of countries into China’s orbit. This paper discusses how this process shapes Latin America’s climate agenda. China’s agenda diverges on many issues from those pursued by Latin American countries and actors. At the same time, Chinese strategies meet resistance, due both to Latin America fragmentation and other actors’ geopolitical interests, mainly those of the EU and the USA. I argue that China is pursuing a vision of a green transformation placing “development” in focus in line with a “thin” understanding of sustainability. What is emerging is a “transmuted” multilateralism wherein new institutions coexist with existing ones that are given new content.