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Companies controlled by China’s authoritarian government have been granted critical infrastructure projects in Colombia and plan to expand their influence.

The Chinese government’s increased stakes in Colombia are the result of trade deals made with Bogota between 2008 and 2019, and Beijing’s growing imperial ambitions.

Many of the projects controlled by Chinese corporations were obtained with the help of regional elites and the administration of former President Ivan Duque after a visit to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in July 2019.

Since this visit, foreign direct investment from the Asian giant skyrocketed and thousands of Chinese workers traveled to Colombia allegedly to work on Chinese projects.

Bogota and Beijing have been secretive about the extent Chinese state companies gained control over Colombia’s critical infrastructure.

China’s Small and Medium Business Corporation (CVCC) wants to “turn Colombia into the first Chinese warehouse in America” with its Sol de Oriente project.

The project, which has yet to be approved, includes a tax-free trade zone with 25,000 warehouses, a seaport and an airport on the Caribbean coast.

The seaport would be the sixth in the world with the capacity to receive 400-meter-long container, according to the CVCC.

The Sol de Oriente project even wants to facilitate “international education” that teaches locals to speak Mandarin.

The project proposal is the latest of four port construction proposals in Uraba, which has access to both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Three of these Chinese-backed projects have yet to be approved.

The elites from Antioquia and Choco have also been promoting the construction of a port in the Gulf of Tribuga, which would create a direct naval route between Uraba and China.

The government of former President Alvaro Uribe began constructing a road to Tribuga in 2007, but this project was abandoned.

Uribe’s successor, former President Juan Manuel Santos, told the BBC in 2011 that the Chinese government was “very advanced” in the development of a project to connect Uraba’s two coasts by train.

No project proposal about a railroad through the Pacific jungles was ever made public.

Santos’ successor, former President Ivan Duque, vowed to revive the Tribuga project while campaigning in 2018, but abandoned the plans almost immediately after taking office.

The Chinese embassy in Bogota has always shown more interest in expanding the existing Pacific port of Buenaventura.

During a November 2016 visit to the port city, the embassy’s top trade official, Donn Wei, said that “Buenaventura is an idea site because of its strategic geographical location.”

Local authorities and the embassy reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding about a $16 million investment in the port.

The Chinese apparently lost interest in Buenaventura until September last year when Ambassador Lan Hu led a delegation of more than 30 representatives of 21 corporations to the port city.

FUENTE: COLOMBIA REPORTS