China’s Xi opens ‘megaport’ in Latin American country

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Peruvian counterpart, Dina Boluarte, inaugurated a massive deep-water port in Peru on Thursday. The Chancay Port is expected to generate “considerable” income and become the key hub for maritime travel between South America and Asia.

Both leaders took part in the inauguration from the presidential palace in the Peruvian capital, Lima via video link, viewing a livestream of the ribbon-cutting ceremony while the port authorities declared the hub operational.

The 15-berth deep-water port is located around 60km south of Lima in Chancay. It was built by China’s Cosco Shipping Ports and received $1.3 billion in investment from Beijing. Xi called the project a successful start of a “21st century maritime Silk Road,” referring to the ancient trade route linking China with the West.

“This is not only an important project under Belt and Road cooperation, but also the first smart port in South America,” Xi said, referring to Beijing’s hallmark project to build infrastructure abroad, signed by 22 countries in South America and the Caribbean.

“It will enable Peru to put in place a multi-dimensional, diverse and efficient network of connectivity spanning from coast to inland, from Peru to Latin America and further on to the Caribbean,” he said in an opinion piece for the state newspaper El Peruano. Xi noted that the Chancay project is expected to generate $4.5 billion in annual revenue, create more than 8,000 direct jobs, and reduce the logistics costs of the Peru-China route by 20%, while cutting the sea shipping time from Peru to China to 23 days.

Boluarte called the opening of the port “a historic moment of pride for all Peruvians.” She added that the project is a key step toward Peru’s goal of building an international transshipment hub for South America, which is set to become a gateway connecting Latin America and Asia and speed up trade across the Pacific.

According to the Peruvian director of the Chancay Chamber of Commerce, Mario Ocharan, the first ship is due to set sail from the port for China next week, transporting Peruvian fruit.

China’s involvement in the port project has raised concerns in the US. General Laura Richardson, the outgoing US Southern Command chief, warned earlier this month that the deep-water port could be used by the Chinese Navy to host warships and for intelligence gathering.

“It could be used as a dual-use facility. [The navy] could use it… this is a playbook that we’ve seen play out in other places, not just in Latin America,” she told the Financial Times, adding that many in the US find it suspicious that China is involved in infrastructure projects that “just happen to be around all these strategic locations or sea lines of communication for global commerce.”