Abstract

MENDEZ-COTO, Marco Vinicio  and  VASQUEZ GUZMAN, Nirel Marie. China’s Global Security Initiative: Reflections from Central America. Relac. Int. [online]. 2025, vol.98, n.1, pp.104-133.  Epub June 13, 2025. ISSN 2215-4582.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15359/98-1.5.

The contemporary international system is characterized by its multipolar structure. Over recent decades, in the process of systemic transformations, a strategic competition has been triggered among the major powers, most notably between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. This competition has produced tensions on the ideational level-centered on narratives-and on the material associated with the distribution of economic and military capabilities and the influence that derives from those powers.

Although Central America has been considered a sphere of U.S. Geopolitical influence, the process of systemic transformations has enabled the People’s Republic of China to assume a progressively and increasingly fundamental role as a partner of these nations. This development is supported by a foreign policy strategy and a narrative that challenges the values and ideological frameworks dominant in the West, and is perceived as threatening by the United States and the new Trump administration.

This article aims to analyze the dynamics of strategic competition between the United States and China, as well as its effects in Central America. Within this framework, the security dimension will be examined, with a focus on China’s 2022 “Global Security Initiative” as a narrative that contrasts with the dominant Western perspective, and on its impact on the development of security cooperation dynamics with countries in the region.

Keywords : Central America; China; United States; Geopolitics; Global Security Initiative; International Security.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in English     · English ( pdf )