James Kynge

That's in the case of Iran.

And in the case of Venezuela, well, we already know what's happened there.

Maduro has been deposed, and the US is saying that it wants to run not only Venezuela, but it wants to expunge the Western Hemisphere, which basically means Latin America, wants to expunge the influence of non-hemispheric powers.

That's a kind of US code for China and Russia.

So

Really, 2026 could not have got off to a worse start for Chinese foreign policy.

What are you seeing, Alice?

I know that you're looking at both of these issues very carefully right now.

Yes, absolutely, Alice.

And just to go back to Latin America, I very much concur with what you're saying.

I've just been doing a bit of research on how deep Chinese involvement with Latin America is.

And I really concur with you that it's going to be very hard for the US to counter China in any kind of comprehensive way.

I came across some interesting research from an academic called Francisco Udinez, who's an assistant professor at

at the Pontifical Catholic University in Chile.

And he has calculated that China has already economically displaced the U.S.

in 10 out of 12 countries in South America.

So South America is obviously the southern part of Latin America.

It includes countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, etc.,

What he means is that China is the primary trading partner of these countries, that it's invested heavily in infrastructure such as ports, roads, railways and power plants.

And it's securing access to crucial resources in South America as well, such as lithium and copper.