Speeches

Ladies and gentlemen:

It is a true honour to be here today in Zhengzhou, at this third meeting between Latin America and the Caribbean and China.

I would especially like to thank SELA and the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for convening us once again for this dialogue.

We find ourselves at a profoundly transformative moment.

Geopolitical tensions, the reconfiguration of global value chains, technological and energy transitions, and growing pressures on the multilateral system are modifying not only the world economy, but also the ways in which our countries relate to one another, cooperate and build their future.

Faced with this reality, we could choose to withdraw. We could accept fragmentation as inevitable.

But we have the opportunity to choose another path: to make integration and cooperation tools for rebuilding trust and the capacity for collective action.

From the Secretariat of the Association of Caribbean States, we deeply believe in that possibility.

In the face of an increasingly complex international landscape, integration takes on a meaning that goes far beyond the economic; it is also a strategic asset of multilateralism.

This is particularly important for Latin America and for the Greater Caribbean.

We are a region of enormous diversity and wealth. We differ in territory, population, productive capacities and levels of development. But we share a geography and, above all, we share a sea that connects us and makes many of our challenges and opportunities inevitably common.

Individually, many States and territories of the Greater Caribbean face structural limitations and disadvantages. Collectively, the equation changes.

Collectively, we can build political scale.

Because integration is not only about adding countries together; it is about adding capacities together.

At a time when global multilateralism is facing deep tensions and its mechanisms have not always managed to respond with the necessary effectiveness, we must turn our gaze back to the regions.

And, from our regions, we must be able to look towards the world and build bridges between regions.

We need a practical multilateralism, one that is not built only from the major centres of power, but also from our own capacities: from our ability to meet, identify common interests and turn them into concrete commitments.

From that perspective, mechanisms such as SELA and the ACS are fundamental: our mandates and capacities are different and, precisely for that reason, complementary.

This Forum demonstrates what we can achieve when those capacities converge around a shared agenda.

Since its first editions, it has sought to bring together governments, integration organizations, academia and other actors around a shared agenda between Latin America and the Caribbean and China. Today, we have the opportunity to move towards consolidating that dialogue as a permanent platform for cooperation.

And to do so, perhaps we also need to revisit some of our own ideas about integration.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has recently emphasized the importance of moving towards more flexible forms of regional cooperation: avoiding rigid alignments, prioritizing viable agreements over the constant pursuit of unanimity, transforming our lowest common denominators into concrete commitments, and prioritizing functions and results over institutional forms.

This reflection is particularly relevant at the moment we are living through.

Our diversity does not have to be a limitation. It can be a strength. We do not all need to move forward at the same pace or in the same way. We can build agreements around concrete objectives and allow results to generate the trust needed to progressively expand our cooperation.

The Association of Caribbean States has a unique capacity to do so.

We bring together 25 Member States and 10 Associate Members in a geography that extends far beyond the insular Caribbean. The Greater Caribbean brings together Central America and Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, and the island States and territories of the Caribbean around a space that connects us and makes us profoundly interdependent: the Caribbean Sea.

The Caribbean Sea is our main regional public good.

Our economies, our food security, our communities and an essential part of our identity depend on its health. But it is also connectivity: the space through which our trade, our history and the ties among our peoples circulate.

The Greater Caribbean does not lack assets. Our challenge is to turn them into capacities.

To do so, we need investment, knowledge, technology and connectivity.

We need partners.

And it is here that our relationship with China takes on particular importance.

The economic relationship between China and Latin America and the Greater Caribbean has reached a scale that would have been difficult to imagine just a few decades ago. China is now one of our region’s main trading partners, and bilateral trade reached approximately 477 billion dollars in 2024.

But the most important question for us is not only how much more we can trade.

The question is what kind of relationship we want to build for the coming decades.

From the perspective of the Secretariat of the ACS, we want a relationship based on mutual respect and shared benefit; a relationship that strengthens our productive and technological capacities, expands our connectivity, creates opportunities and allows the benefits of cooperation to reach our peoples.

Because infrastructure, investment, trade and technology are indispensable instruments. But the aspiration is individual and collective well-being.

And here I would like to pause on one idea.

For decades, we have thought of integration fundamentally through the lens of geographic proximity.

Deepening integration among ourselves remains indispensable. But today’s world demands something more from us: building bridges between regions.

Bridges to exchange knowledge and technology, connect capacities and build productive agreements.

The relationship between Latin America, the Greater Caribbean and China can be one of those bridges. To build it, we must be clear about what we need, what we can contribute and what we are willing to build together, based on respect, reciprocity and recognition of our respective priorities.

Because this new international landscape also poses a question that, from the Greater Caribbean, we must dare to answer:

Will the Greater Caribbean simply be a spectator of this new geopolitical reconfiguration, or will it be a region capable of influencing it?

Our answer must be clear. We want to be protagonists of our own future. Not from isolation. Nor from rigid alignments.

We want to engage with the world from our priorities and our interests; with the capacity to dialogue with all, cooperate with all and build relationships that respond to the needs of our peoples.

Excellencies,

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of our time is to learn once again how to build together: among different countries, among economies of different sizes and among geographically distant regions.

To build while recognizing our differences, without seeking to eliminate them, but identifying what we can achieve when we find common objectives.

Cooperation does not mean submitting ourselves or giving up our priorities.

It means having the capacity to state them clearly, build trust and find spaces of mutual benefit.

The Greater Caribbean has the assets, the diversity and the capacity to do so.

This Forum demonstrates that bridges are possible. It is now up to us to turn them into results.

Because, ultimately, our integration, our multilateralism and our cooperation must be measured by what truly matters: their capacity to transform the opportunities of this new era into well-being, dignity and a better life for our peoples.

Thank you very much.