"We very much welcome continued Chinese engagement, investment and trade with countries of the Western Hemisphere. I think that helps to strengthen the economies, to provide employment for people in these countries," said Arturo Valenzuela, the Obama administration's top diplomat for Latin America.
"It certainly is not of concern, it certainly is not a threat," he told reporters in Beijing, when asked if Washington was worried about any aspect of China's relationship with Latin America, long considered the United States' strategic backyard.
China has close ties with both Cuba and Venezuela, neither of which have good relations with the United States.
Valenzuela, the assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, said he "noted" that most Chinese imports from Latin America were of raw materials, such as copper from Chile or soybeans from Brazil.
Yet only five percent of Chinese trade as a whole was with the region, he added.
"If that can grow, that's extremely valuable," Valenzuela said. "Our fundamental objective is to ensure prosperous, growing economies in the Western Hemisphere and that benefits us all.
"The challenge for the countries of Latin America is to grow in order to be able to overcome significant inequalities, very large pockets of poverty and things like that," he added.
"Latin America has to grow, much more robustly if it is to be able to overcome some of these problems, and that can be accomplished through greater investment and through greater trade," Valenzuela said.
"China has even greater opportunities to focus some of its trade on the Western Hemisphere. China's increased its investment significantly over the last few years, but it's still a very small fraction of the investment the United States has made." (Reuters)
