Chinese President Hu Jintao again stepped on the land of Latin America on his first visit to Mexico, the second largest country on the continent after his first trip to Latin America in November 2004. This move marks the further warming up of Sino-Latin American relations that have entered the "best period of history".

The heating up of China-Latin America ties is not "a man-made landscape", but is "created by the trend of the times". It is a product emerged on the premise that both China and Latin America have been coincidentally implementing the strategy of reform and opening up against the background of China's peaceful rise.

In a bid to realize the strategic goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way, China is pursuing a "going global" strategy, and has gained the momentum of exploring the Latin American market in recent years.

At the same time, Latin America has stepped out of the "lost 10 years" of the 1980s and given up the development mode of import substitutes that had continued for half a century, and adopted the development strategy of opening to the outside world.

The overflow effect of China's development has brought Latin American people out of the confine of "looking across the sea" and "relying on hearsay" in their cognition of China. Instead, they have gotten personal experiences in things which are visible to people with raised heads and touchable with extended hands. China has come in wake of the USA to become another "engine" that drives up the economic growth of Latin America.

Brazilian President Lula de Silva has pointed out, "Brazil's new foreign policy will regard China as an important cooperative partner". For this reason, "looking toward the East", "taking the express of China" has become the important policy choice of various Latin American countries, giving a new drive for the development of Sino-Latin American relations.

There are mainly three major indications of the rapid warming up of China-Latin America ties in recent years:

First is the unprecedented growth of each other's strategic demands. China has since the mid-1990s established in succession strategic partnerships of different connotations with Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina and Peru and has established comprehensive cooperative partnership with Chile.

Second is unprecedented frequent top-level exchange between China and Latin America. In the more than one year, Chinese President, Vice-President and Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference have paid four visits to Latin America; visits to China paid by heads of state of Latin America are unprecedented in number.

Top-level contacts and dialogs between the two sides have pushed bilateral political ties to go from the "shallower to the deeper".

Third is increased economic and trading interdependence between China and Latin America. Bilateral trade volume increased to over US$40 billion in 2004, making China surpass Japan for the first time to become an Asian market which Latin America hopes most to explore.

The unprecedented warmth of China-Latin America relationship has aroused the high attention of the United States that has always regarded Latin America as the "backyard". Someone in the US has gone so far as to allege: China has taken advantage of the time when the US is busy with counter-terrorism, the Iraq war and domestic security to intensify all-directional infiltration into Latin America, in an attempt to fill up the "power vacuum" formed as a result of US "neglect" of Latin America, thus constituting a certain threat to US leading power in the Western Hemisphere.

The worries of some Americans about the close relations between China and Latin America essentially reflect their worries about China's peaceful rise. Contacts between China and Latin America are normal inter-state associations in which there is neither military alliance aimed at any third party, nor is there any act of nibbling or harming the economic benefits of a third party, still less the intention of elbowing other forces out of Latin America.

China-Latin America relationship dates back to the ancient times that has a history of over 400 years of associations, and China's policy of friendliness toward Latin America has all along been an important component part of China's diplomacy.

It is absolutely not an act taken after the start of US anti-terrorism. China hopes that it and Latin America would become all-weather friends characterized by mutual trust politically; cooperative partners, by mutual benefit and win-win result economically; and typical examples of different civilizations, by active dialogs.

It can be said that the policy objectives of China and Latin American take the interests of respective countries as the starting point and are targeted at mutual benefit and win-win results and contributing to promoting world peace and development. It is totally unnecessary for those Americans "to entertain groundless worry".

Carried on the front page of People's Daily Overseas Edition September 14, the above article by Wu Hongying, director of the Research Office of the Institute of Latin America Studies under China Modern International Relations, is translated by People's Daily Online