When the Indo-Pacific Met the Continent of Resources
“For two centuries, South America searched for the centers of power by looking north and toward the Atlantic. In the twenty-first century, it may discover that a decisive part of its future lies on the other side of the Pacific.”
Something profound is happening in South America, and it is probably far too significant to measure solely in tons of copper, container ships, or photographs of presidents shaking hands with Xi Jinping in Beijing.
In January 2026, China published its third official policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean. In it, Beijing proposes deepening cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative and expanding it into infrastructure, trade, energy, science, technology, agriculture, finance, and connectivity. We are therefore not witnessing a random succession of business deals. There is a strategy. (China.org.cn)
And on the other side of the Pacific lies a continent possessing precisely what the twenty-first century needs. Copper. Lithium. Iron. Food. Water. Energy. Agricultural land. Critical minerals. Ports opening onto the largest ocean on the planet.
“The ancient Silk Road crossed Central Asia on its way to Europe. The new one is crossing the Pacific.”
I. CHANCAY CHANGED THE MAP
The Peruvian port of Chancay may ultimately be remembered as something considerably greater than a gigantic port development.
Inaugurated in November 2024, it became a direct connection between the South American coast and China. According to official Peruvian information subsequently reported by Chinese authorities, shipping time between Peru and Asia could be reduced from approximately 35 to 23 days. During the first year of operation of the direct Chancay–Shanghai route, approximately US$783 million worth of goods were transported. Twelve fewer days are not simply twelve fewer days. They mean smaller inventories, lower logistics costs, different supply chains, and a new economic geography.
From Chancay, something even greater may begin to take shape: overland connections toward South America’s interior, Brazil looking toward the Pacific, and Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Ecuador reconsidering corridors that for decades were constrained by a commercial geography oriented primarily toward other destinations.
“The ocean did not change.”
“What changed was who began using it strategically.”
II. THE CONTINENT CHINA NEEDS
China did not come to South America merely in search of markets where it could sell automobiles, machinery, solar panels, electrical equipment, or telephones. It also found here an important part of the twenty-first century’s material supply base.
Brazil possesses iron ore, oil, soybeans, and extraordinary agricultural capacity. Chile and Peru rank among the world’s copper giants. Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile hold enormous lithium resources. Added to these are food, energy, silver, zinc, and other strategic minerals distributed throughout the continent. The energy transition is multiplying the importance of many of these resources.
There can be no widespread electrification without copper. There can be no millions of batteries without critical materials. There can be no urbanization without steel. There can be no food security without major agricultural producers. That is why this relationship ceased being peripheral long ago.
Merchandise trade between China and Latin America and the Caribbean reached approximately US$510 billion in 2024, nearly twice the level recorded a decade earlier. Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Peru accounted for approximately 76% of China’s trade with the region between 2013 and 2024. (ODI: Think change)
“South America is no longer simply the distant backyard of the world’s major economies.”
“It is becoming a component of their strategic supply chains.”
III. CHILE HAS ALREADY CROSSED THAT THRESHOLD
In Chile, the transformation can be measured without the need for speeches. During the first half of 2026, China accounted for 30.8% of Chile’s total trade and received 33.9% of its exports. The United States represented 17.7% of total trade. China was once again the country’s largest trading partner. (Default)
This means something geopolitically enormous. A country located on the western edge of South America, politically, financially, and culturally integrated into the Western world for decades, now has as its principal trading partner a power located almost twenty thousand kilometers away.
“The Pacific made possible what distance seemed to prevent.”
“And copper ultimately did the rest.”
IV. WASHINGTON LOOKS SOUTH
The United States remains a fundamental power in Latin America. It has investments, companies, technology, financial institutions, military relationships, and a geographical proximity that China will never possess.
But proximity no longer means exclusivity. For much of the twentieth century, Washington could regard the Western Hemisphere as a region where no power from outside the continent could seriously compete with its influence.
That world has ended. China did not need to establish a new Monroe Doctrine. It needed to buy copper, iron ore, and soybeans; sell technology; finance infrastructure; build ports; and become a customer that South America needed. The result is plain to see. In certain South American countries, China has already displaced the United States from first place in commercial relations.
“It did not happen through aircraft carriers.”
“It happened through merchant ships.”
V. PRESIDENTS TRAVEL TO BEIJING FOR A REASON
Latin American presidential visits to China should not be viewed as isolated diplomatic ceremonies either. Governments travel because behind the photographs lie markets, investments, infrastructure, minerals, energy, technology, and financing.
Beijing, moreover, is expressing its political position with increasing clarity. Its 2026 policy paper on Latin America proposes maintaining high-level exchanges, deepening the Belt and Road Initiative, and expanding economic and technological cooperation.
China’s proposal is easy to understand. On one side of the Pacific lies an enormous Asian market. On the other lies an immense reservoir of resources and food.
“Between them lies an ocean.”
“Infrastructure is beginning to connect them.”
VI. BRAZIL COULD CHANGE THE SCALE
But the real transformation could occur when Brazil fully turns its attention toward the Pacific. Brazil is too large to remain geographically confined to the Atlantic when a fundamental part of its markets lies in Asia.
That is why bi-oceanic corridors have implications extending far beyond a highway. An efficient corridor from Brazil’s productive heartland to Peruvian or Chilean ports could alter transportation times, costs, investments, and industrial decisions. Chancay would then cease to be exclusively Peruvian. Northern Chile would cease to be exclusively Chilean.
Andean mountain passes would cease to be merely borders. They would begin becoming components of a continental architecture.
“And South America would begin functioning as what its geography has always allowed it to be.”
“A continent between two oceans.”
VII. THE INDO-PACIFIC HAS REACHED US
For years, we spoke of the Indo-Pacific as though it were a distant geopolitical arena composed of China, the United States, India, Japan, Australia, Korea, and the nations of Southeast Asia.
That is no longer sufficient. If the minerals that fuel Asian electrification, the food that supplies Asian cities, and the ships sailing directly toward Chinese ports all depart from South American shores, then South America is beginning to become an economic part of that vast region.
India will also continue growing. Japan and Korea will continue needing resources. Europe will seek to secure critical minerals. The United States will attempt to preserve its influence. China will continue expanding its connections. This gives South America something extraordinarily valuable: bargaining power.
It has no reason to ask permission to trade with Beijing, Washington, Brussels, New Delhi, Tokyo, or Seoul.
“It can trade with all of them.”
“And it can do so while defending its own interests.”
VIII. THE NEW ROUTE
The great question, then, is no longer whether China has arrived in South America. It arrived long ago. The question is whether South America will understand what that means. Because exporting millions of tons of copper, lithium, iron ore, and food without developing its own technology, industry, knowledge, and infrastructure would mean repeating an all-too-familiar history, even if the ships were now sailing toward another ocean.
The real opportunity is much greater. It lies in using the new trans-Pacific axis to industrialize minerals, develop value chains, build infrastructure, incorporate technology, and negotiate from the extraordinary position that comes with possessing resources needed by every major global player.
The ancient Silk Road transported goods between civilizations. The new one could carry something far more important for South America: a historic opportunity.
“For centuries, the great powers came to South America searching for what lay beneath its soil. For the first time, South America has the opportunity to look toward all of them and decide what it wants to build above it.”
VIII. SOUTH AMERICA SHIFTS ITS AXIS
For much of the twentieth century, South America lived economically and politically under the enormous gravitational pull of the United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe. Geography seemed to have determined the playing field. Washington lay to the north, Europe across the Atlantic, and Asia remained extraordinarily distant. But trade, ports, technology, and new supply chains began altering that old geography.
China is now the leading trading partner of several of South America’s largest economies and a major gateway to the Asian market. Brazil also belongs to BRICS alongside China, India, and Russia, while Bolivia participates as a partner country. At the same time, bi-oceanic corridors could connect Brazil’s productive heartland with Peru and Chile, while Chancay has just provided a trans-Pacific outlet whose true significance is only beginning to emerge.
Something far more important than merchandise travels along these routes. They carry Chilean and Peruvian copper, Brazilian iron ore, South American lithium, food, oil, energy, and critical minerals. In the opposite direction come capital, infrastructure, machinery, electric vehicles, telecommunications, technology, and an industrial capacity that has transformed China into one of the world’s great manufacturing centers.
The result is a transformation that Washington can hardly ignore. The United States is not disappearing from South America, nor is it ceasing to be a fundamental power on the continent. But the economic primacy that accompanied its hemispheric influence for generations is being displaced in decisive areas. China is no longer a distant visitor. It is an economic actor firmly established at the very heart of South America’s relationship with the world.
And behind China lies something even greater: the Indo-Pacific. India will continue increasing its economic and demographic weight; Japan and South Korea need resources and markets; Southeast Asian economies continue growing; and China will continue demanding food, energy, and minerals. South America possesses precisely many of the resources that this enormous region will need over the coming decades.
That is why Chancay, the bi-oceanic corridors, Brazil, and BRICS are all part of the same picture. There is no treaty bringing them together into a single architecture, nor an official map drawing all these connections. But economics is beginning to draw them. From Brazil’s Atlantic coast to Pacific ports, and from there toward Asia, an axis is emerging that twenty years ago would have seemed extraordinarily ambitious.
The change could be historic. For centuries, South America was a peripheral supplier of raw materials to the industrial centers of the Northern Hemisphere. Now it could become a strategic platform between the Atlantic and Pacific, simultaneously connected to China, India, BRICS, and the enormous Indo-Pacific market. The difference appears geographical, but in reality it is political, economic, and strategic.
The new Silk Road is crossing the Pacific, BRICS is giving it geopolitical depth, and Brazil could provide it with continental scale. South America is no longer observing the Indo-Pacific from a distance. It is beginning to become part of it.
“South America did not move on the map; the center of gravity that had seemed immovable for a century did.”
VII. BRAZIL, BRICS, AND THE BRIDGE TO THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Brazil is not looking toward Asia merely because China buys Brazilian soybeans, iron ore, oil, and other products. There is a much larger geopolitical architecture behind that relationship.
Brazil was one of the four original founders of BRIC, alongside Russia, India, and China. Today, BRICS has expanded to eleven members, bringing major powers and economies from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America together at the same political and economic table. Bolivia has also joined as a BRICS partner country, extending that architecture into South America’s interior. This changes the scale of the new Silk Road.
Brazil could simultaneously become South America’s great bridge to China and the continent’s meeting point with India, Russia, and the new economies incorporated into BRICS. We are no longer talking merely about bilateral trade between Beijing and Brasília. We are talking about South America’s progressive connection to an economic and political structure of the Global South that brings together approximately 49% of the world’s population and nearly 39% of global GDP. Geography then completes the picture.
China and India lie on the other side of the Pacific. Brazil occupies practically the entire eastern half of South America. Between them lie Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, the Andes, bi-oceanic corridors, and Pacific ports. A Brazilian container that one day efficiently crosses the continent to be shipped toward Asia will represent far more than a logistics operation. It will be the physical expression of a geopolitical transformation.
For generations, much of South America’s economic relationship with the world was organized around the United States and Europe. BRICS introduces another axis. Brazil is already a member. Bolivia has joined as a partner. And behind them stand China and India, two Asian giants whose demand for food, energy, minerals, and infrastructure will continue shaping much of the global economy. That is why Washington is watching.
The competition is no longer simply about who sells more automobiles, buys more copper, or finances a port. What is beginning to change is the architecture through which South America relates to global power. The new Silk Road crosses the Pacific.
“BRICS gives it political depth.”
“And Brazil could become the enormous bridge connecting both worlds.”
IX. THE NEW ROUTE
For centuries, the ancient Silk Road connected civilizations separated by deserts, mountains, and empires. The new one does not need caravans. It crosses the largest ocean on the planet, carrying copper, lithium, iron ore, food, and energy toward Asia, while bringing infrastructure, technology, investment, machinery, and new markets back to South America.
Chancay is a gateway. Brazil could give it continental scale. Bi-oceanic corridors could connect the two oceans. BRICS adds geopolitical depth. And China and India represent two Asian giants whose economic scale will continue reshaping the global balance.
“When the route changes, the map of power changes with it.”
X. THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN: THE SOUTHERN GATEWAY
At the southern tip of the continent, the Strait of Magellan is regaining an importance that for decades seemed to have been overshadowed by the expansion of the Panama Canal and the concentration of maritime trade along Northern Hemisphere routes. However, the new geopolitical landscape, congestion in interoceanic canals, growing trade between Asia and South America, and the need for alternative routes are restoring the strait’s exceptional strategic relevance.
The Strait of Magellan is not merely a maritime passage between the Atlantic and Pacific. It is a natural sovereign waterway located within South American territory, offering an alternative for transporting merchandise, energy, and resources between both oceans. Its value is increasing in a world where supply chains seek to reduce risks, diversify routes, and avoid dependence on a single passage.
In the very near future, the strait could become an essential component of a southern logistics network encompassing Chilean and Argentine ports, bi-oceanic corridors, energy terminals, digital infrastructure, and connections with Antarctica. The development of Punta Arenas, Tierra del Fuego, and Patagonian ports could establish a platform capable of receiving, storing, and redistributing cargo destined for Asia, North America, and Europe.
The expansion of green hydrogen, ammonia, critical minerals, and renewable energy production could also transform the strait’s role. Patagonia possesses exceptional conditions for generating wind power and producing clean fuels destined for Asian and European markets. In that context, the maritime passage would cease to be merely a shipping route and become the backbone of a new energy and commercial system.
Its importance will also be military and geopolitical. Whoever controls, protects, and develops the infrastructure associated with the Strait of Magellan will hold a privileged position over maritime communications at the southern tip of the continent, access to Antarctica, and the connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The presence of powers from outside the region in the South Atlantic and southern Pacific will inevitably make the strait part of the major strategic discussions of the twenty-first century.
But that opportunity requires planning, cooperation, and sovereignty. Possessing a natural maritime route will not be enough. Ports will need modernization, navigational safety must improve, ecosystems must be protected, scientific capabilities must be strengthened, and policies between Chile and Argentina must be coordinated. The Strait of Magellan could become a corridor for South American integration or remain merely a transit area administered from outside the region.
The ancient southern route is thus returning to the center of the map. In an increasingly fragmented world, the Strait of Magellan could become one of the great alternatives for connecting the oceans, transporting the energy of the future, and projecting South America toward Antarctica and the Indo-Pacific.
Washington will have to become accustomed to a reality it can no longer manage according to the old hemispheric logic: the Pacific also begins in South America. The map did not change. The routes of power did.
“The ancient Silk Road connected East and West.”
“The new one could accomplish something even greater: connect South America to the century being written on the other side of the Pacific.”
Author: Mauricio Herrera Kahn
BIBLIOGRAPHY
OECD, ECLAC, CAF & European Commission. Latin American Economic Outlook 2025: Promoting and Financing Production Transformation. 2025. The report highlights China’s growing role in Latin American infrastructure, including transportation, energy, and the Chancay megaport as a gateway between South America and Asia.
AidData. Chancay Port Opens as China’s Gateway to South America. William & Mary, 2024. Analyzes the Port of Chancay within the new phase of the Belt and Road Initiative and its potential connection with Brazil and other South American corridors.
World Bank. Managing the Risks of the Belt and Road. Washington, D.C. Examines the opportunities and risks associated with BRI transportation corridors, including trade, investment, debt, transparency, and environmental and social impacts.
