China has established long-lasting diplomatic, political and commercial links with the vast majority of countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region. In the past decades, its presence has become more visible in the region, thanks to its active diplomacy, its financing of large infrastructure projects, the joint-ventures, and the financial cooperation that has helped many countries overcome severe limitations in their access to capital markets. Also, Chinese immigrants have contributed significantly to the relations between China and the countries in the region. In the past decades, the economic integration between East Asia and Latin American countries has been hailed as a model of partnership for development. For most Latin American countries, bilateral relations with the People’s Republic of China have acquired new dimensions after the year 2010. Commercial and financial relations have set the pace for the growing political and cultural exchanges. China has become the second trade partner and the third source of investment in the region. Furthermore, cooperation between China and Latin American countries was fundamental during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. However, China′s growing presence in the international arena, and in Latin America in particular has given place to heated debates in academic circles and the media about the role and the strategy of China in the region. For one, some critical voices in Latin American think tanks that have characterized the relationship as the reconfiguration of the center- periphery model for the 21 st century. Also, there are some that assume that China′s presence in the region is part of a strategy to overcome the current hegemonic power in the world system