China's President Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics in Beijing on Friday
Beijing (AFP) – China welcomed Argentina into its global Belt and Road Initiative Sunday as President Xi Jinping capped a weekend of frenetic diplomatic activity on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics.
Xi has not left his country since the coronavirus first emerged in the city of Wuhan, with China now the only major economy still pursuing a strict zero-Covid strategy.
But the Beijing Games have allowed Xi to hold a flurry of face-to-face meetings with fellow world leaders for the first time in nearly two years.
On Sunday, state broadcaster CCTV reported that China and Argentina have inked an agreement on "jointly promoting the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road", marking Argentina's entry into the initiative.
China's BRI is a trillion-dollar push to improve trade links across the globe by building landmark infrastructure, and the inclusion of Argentina is a major win for Beijing in Latin America.
Chinese companies invested more than $20 billion in non-financial direct investment on projects in BRI countries in 2021, according to China's commerce ministry.
The deal came as Argentine President Alberto Fernandez made a three-day visit to China during which both sides also said they would continue to support each other on issues concerning sovereign interests.
Xi also met with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday, shortly after Pakistan's army said troops had put an end to four days of assaults by separatists in Balochistan province.
China has invested significantly in the region where separatists have waged an insurgency for years, fuelled by anger that its abundant reserves of natural resources are not relieving citizens from crushing poverty.
During the meeting, Xi stressed that "the Chinese side firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its national independence, sovereignty and dignity, as well as in combating terrorism", according to state media.
He added that China is willing to work with Pakistan in "aligning development strategies".
Xi also met with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Singaporean President Halimah Yacob on Sunday.
His most significant meeting took place on Friday when Xi held talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin just before the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
dr_set on February 6th, 2022 at 18:42 UTC »
This is not new, in 2004 Argentina and China made a similar agreement for about the same amount of money and a lot of the investments did not come to fruition.
China is Argentina's second largest trading partner after Brazil. USA is the third.
TylerBlozak on February 6th, 2022 at 18:30 UTC »
Pretty sure China (or PRC-affiliated front companies) have been placing winning bids on Argentine ports for quite some time now.
This allows them to be flexible and pivot away from North American soy exports (among other commodities), while simultaneously not having to be concerned with potential sanctions and other diplomatic spats that may endanger those critical exports from ever-adversarial US and Canada.
Joseph20102011 on February 6th, 2022 at 16:51 UTC »
Submission statement:
Argentina is in the middle of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement that stipulates that the Argentine government has to reduce its fiscal deficit to zero by 2026 and reduce public sector spending and it is still pending due to inter-party opposition of the Argentine government (the son of former presidents Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, Máximo, resigned as party leader in Argentina's Chamber of Deputies to protest the impending IMF agreement), so the intention of Argentine president's visit to China to sign for the membership with Belt and Road Initiative is obtain around US$23.7 billion Chinese investments for infrastructure projects needed for Argentina and to strengthen its economic ties with China through BRI membership that will make less reliant on IMF and WB.