From the San Jose Mercury News (link)
Chinese officials have assured Washington that Beijing has no plans to seek greater influence in Latin America beyond expanding trade, a senior U.S. envoy said Friday.
The assurances underscore how China’s global rise has heightened concerns about its activities in regions where Washington long has been dominant.
“In our conversations, the purpose was not to draw lines,” Thomas Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said of several days of talks with his Chinese counterparts. “Ultimately, in the region, it’s up to individual countries to determine what kind of relationship they are going to have with China.”
