【正文】 intensive sectors that face growing petition from China include iron and steel, aluminium, electronic products and auto parts. The evidence both on countries and sectors affected by Chinese petition suggest that the situation is rather more plex than is sometimes portrayed. It is by no means clear that the threat posed by China is confined to Mexico and Central America or to labourintensive, low tech industries. This suggests that more work is required to analyse the 4 way in which the threat from China is changing over time. What are the factors that determine the extent to which industries are threatened by Chinese petition? In which sectors/products does Latin America still have a petitive advantage? The second area of concern is that the increased attraction of China as a host for foreign investors has reduced FDI flows to Latin America and the Caribbean. The prima facie case is based on the rapid growth of FDI to China in the 1990s while investment in Latin America and the Caribbean lagged behind. Compared to the literature on trade, there have been relatively few studies on FDI diversion and those that do suffer from a number of limitations, so that it is not possible to arrive at any firm conclusion. A further important indirect effect of China’s growth has been the recent improvement in the terms of trade for primary products. In aggregate this has been positive for the Latin American and Caribbean economies, although at the level of individual countries, there have been winners and losers, depending on whether the economy petes with China or is plementary to it. It is also important to put these developments in the terms of trade in a longer term context. The recent increase has so far been fairly shortlived and, despite this improvement, the region’s terms of trade are still lower than in 1980. Although quite a lot is now known about both the direct and indirect channels through which China impacts on Latin America and the Caribbean, there is much less evidence on the effect that this has had on the region in terms of growth and especially the impact on poverty. The shortterm impact on growth depends primarily on whether a country is plementary to or petitive with China. Countries which are plementary tend to run bilateral trade surpluses with China while those which pete have bilateral deficits and also tend to be negatively affected by Chinese petition in third markets. In the longer term there are concerns that the growth of China is leading to deindustrialization with potentially deleterious effects on technological development and 5 longterm growth for the entire region. The emerging pattern of Chinese FDI in the region also tends to reinforce specialization in primary products. The impact on poverty is the least researched area of China’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. There are grounds for thinking that the distributional effects of the changes in production and prices brought about by the growth of China have not been positive, but this is an area which requires much more research. Since export growth from Latin America has been dominated by primary products which are not likely to generate direct benefits to the poor, a key question is the extent to which governments in the region are able to appropriate additional natural resource rents and to devote these to propoor strategies. One problem faced in analysing the impact of China is the quality and availability of data. There are substantial discrepancies in trade statistics from different sources as well as reports of significant levels of contraband. In the case of FDI there is a great paucity of data, both on Chinese investment in Latin America and the Caribbean and on flows in the opposite direction. A number of areas are identified as requiring further research. Relatively little attention has been given to the growth of imports from China, although these have increased significantly and are now giving rise to concern amongst governments, firms and workers in a number of countries. This is particularly acute in those countries which have a trade deficit with China. The most important gap in terms of research has been the lack, up to now, of detailed analysis of the outes for Latin America and the Caribbean of China’s growing economic significance, especially in terms of the impacts on poverty. There is a need for more country studies and studies of specific value chains which can trace through the impact on industrial production, employment, wages and other variables at the national and sectoral levels. 6 The Impact of China on Latin America and the Caribbean 1. Introduction China’s rapid growth and increased openness over the past quarter century has led to its emergence as a key player in the global economy in the early twentyfirst century. GDP has grown at over 9% per annum over the past two decades and China is now the fourth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP at official exchange rates (and the second largest at purchasing power parity rates). Its share of world trade has risen from less than 1% in 1980 to over 6% in 2020, making it the third largest trading economy. On current trends it could bee the world’s largest exporter by the beginning of the next decade (OECD, 2020). The increased petitiveness of China and its expanded presence in world markets is having a major impact on both developed and developing countries. While this has been extensively analysed from the point of view of developed countries (Cass et. al., 2020。s I m p o rt s f ro m L AC h i n a 39。vis other exporters and the low base help to explain why Brazilian manufacturers took so long to wake up to the Chinese challenge. The recovery of overall imports in 2020 and 2020, driven, inter alia,