LatAm ill-prepared for China expansion -experts

By Reese Ewing

SAO PAULO, June 30 (Reuters) - Latin American countries lack an overall strategy and expertise on China that could help governments and businesses cope with the Asian country's growing presence in the region, scholars said on Tuesday.

China and Latin American specialists speaking at a conference in Sao Paulo said China sees Latin America as vital to its own future energy, food and economic security, but that the region had been slow to develop China policies.

"Latin America is acting toward China's expansion in the world in a reactive, disorganized or ad hoc fashion," said David Shambaugh, professor of political science at The George Washington University.

"When I asked Itamaraty (Brazil's foreign ministry) about its strategy on China, I got blank stares. There is no strategy."

China this year displaced the United States as Brazil's leading trading partner, as it is doing in several other countries in the region, which supplies much of China's demand for soybeans, iron ore, copper and oil.

Shambaugh noted that the Chinese ambassador to Brazil gave a speech in Portuguese on Tuesday, while nobody at Brazil's foreign ministry was fluent in Mandarin and no Latin American diplomat in China was able to give a speech in Chinese.

There are only two comprehensive China studies programs at universities in Latin America, one in Mexico City and the Salvador University in Buenos Aires.

"China on the other hand does have a strategy, on the diplomatic, commercial, cultural and military levels toward Brazil and Latin America," he said at the Brazil-China Business Chamber's Third International Conference.