Column on Geopolitics and Geostrategy October 15, 2024
From September 9-14, 2024, Chilean Defense Minister Maya Fernandez Allende, granddaughter of Chile’s first socialist president Salvador Allende, traveled to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to attend the 11th annual Xiangshan Defense Forum in Beijing. The meeting, the most significant event of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) global defense “diplomacy” during the year, was attended by over 500 representatives from more than 90 countries, including 30 Defense Ministers. While there, presumably following many positive encounters and generous PLA hospitality and a meeting with PLA Defense Minister Dong Jun, Minister Fernandez publicly proclaimed her interest in reviving closer Chile-PLA defense cooperation. Her statement, which included the intention to re-activate a previously established PRC-Chile Joint Working Commission.
Her expressed desire to reinvigorate the Chile-China defense relationship generated significant controversy in Chile, including criticism by former Defense Minister Jorge Burgos, as well as respected Chilean strategists such as Manfred Wilhelmy. Critics expressed concern that Minister Fernandez was effectively committing to significant changes in Chilean foreign policy that could undermine the country’s relationship with important partners such as the United States, as well as opening up Chile to espionage risks through expanded PLA access to Chilean military institutions and personnel. Members of the Defense Committee of the Chilean Senate called for the Minister to testify before the Committee to explain the strategic logic behind the significant change in Chile’s posture implied by her statement in China, and whether it represented a policy shift approved by or coordinated with President Boric and the Chilean Foreign Ministry.
In responding to such concerns, Defense Minister Fernandez emphasized that she had not signed any new formal commitments while in the PRC, but rather, had only committed to increasing cooperation already contemplated by the PRC-Chile Defense Cooperation Agreement that former Chilean Defense Minister Andrés Allamand signed with his Chinese counterparts in June 2011. That agreement, like adherence to China’s Belt and Road initiative and other ambiguous MoUs that governments in the region illustrates how the PRC uses a web of contracts and seemingly non-committal declarations to envelop its partners in relations which can be later exploited when opportunities with more willing, or needy, governments present themselves.
To date, Chile’s defense relationship with the PRC has resembled that of other Western democratic governments that have reasonably strong institutions, and that wish to benefit from interactions with defense establishments of a range of regimes in their country’s sphere of interest, without jeopardizing core relationships with countries aligned with their values, which meaningfully contribute to institutional capabilities.
The PLA and Chilean military have also periodically interacted in Pacific Ocean Naval exercises such as RIMPAC, as well as in forums such as the Western Pacific Naval Symposium. Chinese defense companies are regularly present at important Chilean military shows such as EXPONAVAL and FIDAE.
In the Space domain, the Chinese government has operated an astronomical observatory on Calan Hill, near Santiago, while the PLA-affiliated China Satellite Launching and Tracking and Control (CLTC) organization operates two C-band radars relevant to military purposes in the Santiago Satellite Station facility in the north of the country.
The agenda of Defense Minister Maya Fernandez’ trip to the PRC, which included arrival three days before the start of the forum to make time for visits to other PRC government facilities suggests the likely initial direction for Chile-PRC cooperation initiatives. Her visit to China’s National Defense University suggests a possible increase in Chilean security sector personnel attending courses there, and possibly reciprocal visits to Chilean military institutions, with the Minister mentioning such cooperation in Chile’s National Academy of Political and Strategic Studies (ANEPE), in public comments. Similarly, her visit to China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) suggests possible Chilean purchases of PRC defense electronics systems, while her visit to the Institute of Chemical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Military Science of the PLA suggests interest in cooperation in military materials and other research. Her meeting with the Director of China’s National Space Agency suggests interest in expanding PRC-Chile space cooperation, possibly including on satellite development and launches, data sharing, and possibly a move away from termination of the previously mentioned CLTC contract to operate at the Santiago Satellite Station when its lease expires. Chile’s naval shipbuilding sector was also mentioned during the trip as an area of potential cooperation with the PRC.
Persons in Chile consulted knowledgeable of the Fernandez trip, consulted for this work, differed in their assessment of the intentions behind Minister Fernandez’ commitments to the PRC. Some attributed them to the Minister’s relative inexperience in defense matters and her efforts to bolster her position within the Chilean left after being seen as cooperating too closely with the U.S. Others noted that, despite her words, to date, Chile has relied on the systems and support of the U.S., not the PRC, as the backbone for its defense modernization. Nonetheless, the combination of her expressed intentions, and the existing agreement suggests that some expansion of cooperation with the PRC is likely.
If Chile proceeds forward with such expanded cooperation, it will need to move cautiously to ensure that the benefits achieved offset the risks, and are consistent with the values of civilian, democratic control and human rights prioritized by the Boric government. These include risks of espionage from PLA personnel given access to Chilean institutions, and the reciprocal risk of PRC influence over future Chilean leaders being courted for extended periods during educational visits and other postings in China. It also includes the question of values imparted to Chilean security personnel by PRC institutions whose own security forces have been active in repressing protesters in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and elsewhere, militarizing islands and challenging neighbors’ territory in the South and East China seas, supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine through arms sales, commodity purchases, and other means, as well as China’s history of aggression against its neighbors India (2020) and Vietnam (1979). Chile must also consider risks of increasing engagement with the PRC just as it is engaged in ever more significant confrontations with Chile’s closest allies the United States and the European Union in the South China Sea, including the possibility of a PRC invasion or blockade of Taiwan.
The US has a strong and longstanding relationship of confidence with Chile. The Boric government likely understands that sending of significant numbers of personnel to the PRC for courses and visits, granting access by PLA personnel to Chilean institutions, and the incorporation of Chinese equipment into Chilean security, space, and other government architectures would complicate the ability of the US to share information and work closely with its Chilean counterparts, however much it desires to do so.
The decisions that the principled, democratic Boric government in Chile will make in the coming months regarding its military relationship with the PRC will be important for how the country defines itself and its position vis-à-vis democratic and non-democratic regimes in the increasingly dangerous world order.
Evan Ellisis research professor at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. The views expressed herin are strictly his own.
Note: This column was originally published in Infobae on October 5, 2024.
