China shifts to low-profile projects to weave influence across Latin America

Beijing has moved from high-visibility megaprojects to modest, sub-national contracts—such as lithium mines, electric buses and surveillance gear—to embed itself in Latin American cities and provinces.

U.S. policymakers have long feared Chinese megaprojects in the region, but Beijing has quietly redirected its approach toward low-cost, sub-national initiatives. Companies from China now run power distribution in Peru’s capital, develop lithium sites in Argentine provinces, and sell electric buses and trains to cities across South America. Police departments in numerous municipalities have received Chinese-made riot gear, motorcycles and extensive camera networks, with contracts often concealed behind confidentiality clauses.

Over the past decade, sovereign loans have fallen from about $25 billion to roughly $1.3 billion annually, yet Chinese commercial spending remains around $8 billion a year, largely in equipment and services that bind local authorities to Chinese maintenance and spare-part supply chains. Projects such as Ecuador’s ECU-911 emergency-response system illustrate how a single contract can evolve into a national security backbone that is costly to replace. The cumulative effect is a web of technical and institutional dependence that gives Beijing strategic leverage while remaining largely invisible to the United States.