China is the largest exporter in the world, achieving 2.5 trillion dollars selling its products to the world. This number seems small if you look at it in perspective with the investments it has made in different parts of the world. With an increase in gross capital formation that far exceeds that of the United States.
The strategy of the new Silk Road is not only to make exports to Africa, Europe and Central Asia viable but also to improve the infrastructure in southern Africa to establish a maritime corridor between Africa, South America and China through the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic. Where there is a market of 420 million inhabitants such as the continent of South America. The possibility of improving the quality of infrastructure will allow the generation of a maritime route between the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.
With the transformation of the latent world order, MERCOSUR mutates from an autonomous and protectionist regionalism, towards a regionalism open to global financial networks (Merino, 2017). The fall in commodity prices and the precarious adaptability of the regional bloc in recent years, together with the emergence of new, more flexible Latin American blocs, influenced the position of “opening up to the world” through an intelligent insertion that does not question the peripheral role of MERCOSUR but rather incorporates an international division of labor and transnational capital to integrate into global value chains. Thanks to this paradigm shift in the projection of MERCOSUR, its opening takes shape in the negotiation of free trade agreements with the European Union (EU) and multilateral trade systems with China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ; coinciding with the new Sino-European center of gravity in formation and with the vision of the Pacific Alliance at the regional level. In contrast, China has displaced the EU as the second trading partner in Latin America and is the first in foreign direct investments within MERCOSUR.
The main attraction of MERCOSUR for eastern markets are the energy, mineral and food reserves that the bloc provides, since agro-industrial exports lead the bilateral market with China and other countries in the region (mainly soybeans, beef , fish and shellfish). At the same time, the East sees Latin America as a key geostrategic investment zone for trade, which is reflected, for example, in the China-CELAC Cooperation Forum and the construction of the Nicaragua Canal with Chinese capital; and whose direct investment provides the necessary capital for the industrial development of the region. A new international context in full transformation leads Latin American blocs to seek trade alternatives that benefit the development and prosperity of the region by adapting their agendas towards the new axis of Eurasia. With this new vision, MERCOSUR seeks greater adaptability of its economy within global value chains that, through open regionalism, manages to enhance its characteristics and help achieve commercial goals in the medium and long term.
