Marcelo Ebrard, then Mexican foreign affairs secretary, left, speaks with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping in November 2022. X
R. EVAN ELLIS/U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE
First of three parts
Mexico’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has always been complex. Although Chinese migrants formed an important part in Mexico’s national story, the perceived “otherness” of the Chinese community and competition for work led to occasional violence against ethnic Chinese as reported in The Guardian newspaper in 2021.
As the PRC’s economy has grown, the position of both countries as manufacturing exporters led many Mexicans to see the PRC as a competitor. Mexico hasn’t signed onto China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, nor has it joined the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The countries have, however, recognized each other’s strategic importance. Mexico was one of the first countries in Latin America to recognize the PRC, doing so in February 1972 under President Luis Echeverria.
The longstanding PRC-Mexico relationship and the latter’s strategic importance as an economic power with regional influence led the PRC to recognize Mexico in 2003 as strategic partner, one of the first states in the hemisphere onto which it conferred that status. As with other PRC strategic partners, the status was accompanied by the establishment of a High-Level Working Group designed to facilitate Chinese projects in Mexico, political coordination, and other aspects of the relationship.
In 2013, under the government of Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico upgraded its relationship with the PRC to an “integral strategic partnership.” Mexico, which was head of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) from 2020-2021, led the region’s advance toward the PRC in the 2021 China-CELAC forum. Mexico’s then-Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard led trips to the PRC to pursue business opportunities for Mexico and co-chaired the China-CELAC forum with then Chinese FM Wang Yi. He also led trips to China in July 2019 and June 2023.
Despite such seeming alignment, the Mexico-PRC relationship has been repeatedly subject to tensions. Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s meeting with Tibet’s Dali Lama on Mexican soil in September 2011 generated a furious reaction from the PR, according to the BBC.
Separately, in November 2014, Mexico canceled a rail project connecting Mexico City and Queretaro that had been awarded to China Railway Road Corp. (CRRC) for construction of a fast train between Mexico City and Queretaro after members of the Mexican Parliament complained about the bidding process, the BBC reported.
In January 2015, Mexico’s environmental regulatory agency PROFEPA stopped Dragon Mart, a major wholesale-retail hub for Chinese companies and products in Quintana Roo and fined its developers for building a road without the proper environmental studies. The project had long opposed by local retailers and manufacturers who saw it as competition, according to The Diplomat, an online news magazine.
In April 2022, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for the nationalization of Mexico’s lithium sector after the Chinese mining company Ganfeng spent $264 million to acquire full control over Bacanora, a major lithium deposit in the Sonora Desert, according to mining-technology.com.
The current posture of Mexico’s government toward the PRC reflects competing realities: its close economic interdependence with the U.S. and its structural economic competition with the PRC. Those factors are counterbalanced by a desire to pursue Chinese commercial opportunities while expanding Mexico’s economic options beyond the U.S. and its other traditional economic partners.
The Watch is a professional military journal published by U.S. Northern Command to provide an international forum for military personnel and academics involved in homeland defense. The opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily represent the policies or points of view of the command or any other agency of the U.S. government.