Latin America is a place where American Indian Civilization, European Catholic Civilization and African civilization meet and mingle. It also leads nations in the 3^rd world to embark on the journey to modernization. Developmentalism theory and industrialization through import substitution, incubated in Latin America, have great impact on the rest of the world. Today’s Latin America, as an important component of the developing world, plays a unique and crucial role in the processes of multi-polarization, globalization and modernization.

Taking a glance at the current international situation, we notice that the global layout is undergoing profound changes as propelled by the economic globalization and technological innovation. Meanwhile, varied agents are all highly involved in the reshaping of the new layout and system to get it more in tune with their respective expectations. Under such a circumstance, competitions for energies, resources, markets and technology are obviously escalating, security issues deteriorate, development gaps expand and the globe is becoming smaller. However, the human kind is facing ever more changes. Solutions for these challenges, as offered by Latin America and China, are the same: safeguarding peace, achieving development and establishing a new order of fairness and reasonableness for international politics and economics. The major themes for Sino-Latin American relations are to expand exchanges, deepen cooperation, remove misunderstanding and overcome difficulties, create a win-win situation and develop side by side in the interests of all relevant parties. Geographically separated afar, Latin America and China are coming closer with a common aspiration.  

We are happy to see that Sino-Latin American relations have made new headway in the past year. The economic and trade exchanges enjoy robust growth with the trade volume exceeding USD 50 billion. Given the fact that the figure was a mere USD 10 billion four years ago, the momentum and vista for the development of economic and trade exchanges between Latin America and China are really impressive. Top leaders from Latin America and China exchange visits frequently and the political mutual trust has been furthered. Parties from Latin America and China actively exchange visits and interact. In the past year, 30 delegations from Latin America and China exchanged visits, among them a delegation headed by Mr. Raúl Castro, the 2^nd secretary for the Central Committee of Communist Party of Cuba visited China and the delegation led by Mr. Luo Gan, the Standing Member for the polibureau of the CPC central committee, visited three Latin American nations. The friendly cooperation between Latin America and China has been furthered.