Chinese investment in Latin American ports: the Ecuadorian, Mexican, and Colombian cases

Abstract

This thesis analyzes foreign investment in ports, assets and physical spaces that hold great strategic importance politically and economically at the national level and on a global scale. In particular, the thesis focuses on Chinese investment in Latin American ports in the early 2000s, a time when Chinese economic influence in the region expanded considerably. The analysis seeks to explain why there was Chinese investment in ports in Ecuador and in Mexico but not in Colombia during this period, a context in which all three countries had broader economic ties to China. The thesis examines both in the manner in which Latin American ports opened to private and/or foreign investment, and how Chinese companies invest in foreign countries. It argues that the alignment or misalignment of the manner of opening and Chinese investment practices can explain Chinese investment in ports or the lack thereof.