Abstract

MENDEZ-COTO, Marco Vinicio  and  GUZMAN, Nirel Marie Vásquez. China’s Global Security Initiative: Reflections from Central America. Relac. Int. [online]. 2025, vol.98, n.1, pp.47-78.  Epub Apr 25, 2025. ISSN 2215-4582.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15359/98-1.3.

The contemporary international system is characterized by its multipolarity. In the process of systemic change in recent decades, there has been a strategic competition between the major powers, with the United States and the People’s Republic of China standing out. This competition generates tensions at the ideational level related to narratives, and in the material associated with the distribution of economic and military capabilities and the influence that derives from them.

While the Central American region is, from a geopolitical point of view, an area of US influence, the process of systemic change has enabled the People’s Republic of China to acquire, progressively and increasingly, a fundamental role as a partner of these nations, which is accompanied by a foreign policy strategy and a narrative that clashes with the values and ideas dominant in the West, and is perceived as threatening by the United States and the new Trump administration.

The purpose of this article is to understand the dynamics of strategic competition between the US and China, and its effects in Central America. In this context, the security dimension will be examined, taking as a reference the “Global Security Initiative” proposed by China in 2022 as a narrative against the prevailing perspective in the West, and its impact on the development of security cooperation with countries in the region.

Keywords : Central America; China; geopolitics; Global Security Initiative; international security; USA.

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