Argentina Officially Joins China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Argentina’s government officially joined Beijing’s infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on Sunday, China’s state-run Global Times reported.

The development took place on February 6 in Beijing, China, following an in-person meeting between socialist Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. The two leaders met for bilateral talks 48 hours after Fernandez attended the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing on February 4.

Buenos Aires and Beijing released a joint statement after Sunday’s meeting detailing a series of agreements reached during the negotiation. The statement revealed “[government] officials from China and Argentina signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation within the framework of the BRI,” according to the Global Times.

The MoU aims “to promote the construction of the BRI in Argentina and cooperation in various fields, including policy communication, connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, people-to-people exchanges, and third-party markets,” China’s National Development and Reform Commission — the Chinese Communist Party’s top economic manager — said on February 6.

“During the meeting, Xi stressed that the two countries should promote the high-quality construction of the BRI and implement existing major cooperation projects such as hydropower plants and railways, while giving full play to their complementary advantages and deepening cooperation in various fields,” the Global Times reported.

Observers of Beijing’s BRI scheme — by which China funds and builds various infrastructure projects in developing nations, often via predatory loan structures — have criticized the initiative for its tendency to push struggling nations further into debt. Fernandez on February 3 alluded to Argentina’s already substantial debt — not to China but to the Western world  — during an in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I am determined that Argentina has to stop being dependent on the Fund and the United States, and here I believe that Russia has an important place,” he told Putin during a visit to Moscow.

Fernandez referred to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Washington’s outsized influence on the global lender.

Argentina’s government announced on January 28 it “reached a deal to restructure its US$44.5-billion debt with the IMF, with talks to finalise a deal still ongoing,” the Buenos Aires Times reported on February 4.

Argentina’s government finalized a deal with Beijing on February 1 to construct a nuclear plant based on Chinese technology near Buenos Aires, Argentina’s national capital, in the near future. The Chinese Communist Party will reportedly provide $8 billion in financing toward the project’s $12 billion total budget.