Resources

Camilo Enrique Defelipe Villa

Assistant Professor, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia)
Researcher in the Just Energy Transition Project, Center for China and
Asia-Pacific Studies

Between May 12 and 16, 2025, President Gustavo Petro and a ministerial delegation attended the IV Ministerial Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum in Beijing. During the visit, meetings were held with senior government officials and companies; however, unlike Brazil, there was not a large turnout of Colombian business representatives.

Beyond the purpose of strengthening business and cooperation ties, the context of Colombia’s weakening political relations with the United States and its presidency of CELAC forced the country to take a position on Colombia’s accession to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a matter that had been postponed since 2019.

After several mixed signals since October 2024, when the accession was announced, Colombia decided to join the BRI, giving rise to the most widely covered and controversial event in its relations with China. The controversy surrounding the BRI revolved around a lack of understanding of the initiative and an inadequate management of expectations among the dominant private-sector associations regarding its scope and risks for the Colombian economy, as well as its implications for relations with the United States.

The BRI is a novelty in the language of regional integration. The specificity of its terminology has made it difficult to assimilate for government officials around the world¹, to the point that even a Chinese outlet such as China Global Television Network acknowledges that “it takes time to understand this political jargon” and to “read the tea leaves² [predict the future].” In diplomatic documents, the Spanish version is rendered as “la Franja Económica de la Ruta de la Seda y la Ruta Marítima de la Seda del Siglo XXI,” or simply “la Franja y la Ruta.”³ Beyond this formal definition, the BRI is not a formal investment agreement, not a free trade treaty, not an alliance, not a regional integration agreement, nor a mutual defense pact. In its most tangible form, the BRI is a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at creating spaces to promote China’s supply of infrastructure and technology.

Without seeking to exhaust other definitions, Chinese diplomacy around the BRI is “a process of assembly”⁴ of a framework for the provision of public goods, along with the discourses and norms that will govern such a framework. The BRI is a network in formation whose consolidation requires the progressive adherence of countries and the acquisition of an ecosystem of goods and their standards. For developing countries, it is a foreign policy “brand” that seeks to dissociate China from images of empire, colony, invasion, etc. However, the BRI is neither a bounded nor a finished concept: not all Chinese investments are part of the BRI, and not all multilateral banks with Chinese capital finance BRI projects.

Colombia’s linkage to the BRI has been interpreted from the perspective of what it “is not,” or, in other words, through a disagreement between government and the private sector about what it “is.” This lack of understanding and coordination led the private sector’s opinion, expressed in media and social media commentary⁵, to focus on overestimations⁶ of the risks⁷ and benefits for Colombia. The BRI came to be seen both as a corrective and as an aggravating factor for our trade balance with China; it was viewed both as an aspiration for autonomy and as a perception of threat.

From the government’s side, the formalization of the BRI revealed disagreements⁸ within government about how to represent adherence to the Initiative. There was an effort to edit the language of the adhesion document to communicate an intention to maintain a deep but non-binding relationship with the BRI. Compared to other Memoranda of Understanding, such as Panama’s⁹, the Colombian document is more ambitious and specifies multiple areas of action¹⁰, which demonstrates a pragmatic intention.

In Washington, meanwhile, China’s growing capacity for “assemblage” surpassed the efforts of the Colombian government¹¹ and experts to make clear the non-binding nature of the initiative and that Colombia’s link to the IFR was not directed against the United States. For that country, the IFR seemed to represent a “disassembly” of its power in the hemisphere. For this reason, the U.S. Department of State, through the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, announced that it would oppose current and future financing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and other international financial institutions for Chinese state-owned enterprises operating in Colombia and for countries in the region that have agreements with China. In this way, the United States struck at the heart of the initiative, that is, it affected the possibility of offering infrastructure-related public goods. Although it was assured that the Bogotá Metro, which has a percentage of IDB financing, would not be affected¹², in response, Colombia requested on May 15 to join the New Development Bank¹³, or BRICS Bank.

Amid the controversies, the message that the BRI is what Colombia decides to make of this initiative, in order to reverse this asymmetry, was overlooked. For this reason, a more rigorous process of consultation and coordination between government and the private sector should have been carried out, regardless of the state of relations with the United States. Additionally, the reaction of the business sector suggests that fear and lack of knowledge about China outweigh the Chinese government’s intention to convey trust¹⁴.

It is true that the current situation of Colombia’s productive capacities and export supply does not allow the country to offer much to China. This implies that the cooperation plan for the BRI must be grounded and managed through the ministries¹⁵ and the national and regional development plans, in the form of cooperation and investment agreements in specific projects in infrastructure and other fields. This latter point, however, should be the core challenge in Colombia’s relations with China.

References:

¹ China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe. (2024, February 28). Why we should stop talking about China’s Belt and Road Initiative. CHOICE. https://chinaobservers.eu/why-we-should-stop-talking-about-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative/

² CGTN. (2023, October 18). China’s Belt and Road Initiative explained [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p8ClBnZpyI

³ Belt and Road Portal. (2025, May). Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. Government of China. https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/p/0N4P7CF0.html

⁴ Hu, R. (2024). Assembling China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Discourse, institution, and materials. International Political Sociology, 18(1). https://academic.oup.com/ips/article/18/1/olae002/7595903

⁵ Presidencia de la República de Colombia. (2025, June 11–13). Informativo Agenda Internacional: Visita presidente Gustavo Petro a la República Popular de China [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mM4emoGiqg

⁶ El Tiempo. (2025, May 12). Qué es la Ruta de la Seda China y por qué los empresarios de Colombia dicen que hay riesgos de adherirse. https://www.eltiempo.com/economia/sectores/que-es-la-ruta-de-la-seda-china-y-por-que-los-empresarios-de-colombia-dicen-que-hay-riesgos-de-adherirse-3451615

⁷ Caracol Radio. (2025, May 13). Acercamiento Colombia-China: Qué significa entrar en la Ruta de la Seda [Video]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/reel/604825625203170
Caracol Radio. (2025, May 13). Acercamiento Colombia-China: Qué significa entrar en la Ruta de la Seda. https://caracol.com.co/2025/05/13/acercamiento-colombia-china-que-significa-entrar-en-la-ruta-de-la-seda/

⁸ El Colombiano. (2025, May 15). Ruta de la Seda: Por qué fue el desacuerdo de Petro con Sarabia frente a China. https://www.elcolombiano.com/colombia/ruta-de-la-seda-por-que-fue-el-desacuerdo-de-petro-con-sarabia-frente-a-china-NB27400863

⁹ Government of Panama. (2025, February 2). Memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative. https://cdn.corprensa.com/la-prensa/uploads/2025/02/02/MOU%20Ruta%20de%20la%20Seda.pdf

¹⁰ Inter-American Dialogue. (2025, March). Qué significa ser parte de la Franja y la Ruta de China. https://thedialogue.org/analysis/que-significa-ser-parte-de-la-franja-y-la-ruta-de-china

¹¹ Cancillería de Colombia. (2025, May). Declaración sobre la BRI [Tweet]. X. https://x.com/CancilleriaCol/status/1923399428766883861

¹² La Silla Vacía. (2025, May). Metro de Bogotá asegura recursos pese a amenazas de EE. UU. https://www.lasillavacia.com/en-vivo/metro-de-bogota-asegura-recursos-pese-a-amenazas-de-ee-uu/

¹³ Presidencia de la República de Colombia. (2025, May 25). Colombia radica formalmente en China solicitud de ingreso al banco. https://www.presidencia.gov.co/prensa/Paginas/Colombia-radica-formalmente-en-China-solicitud-de-ingreso-al-banco-250516.aspx

¹⁴ El Tiempo. (2025, May). China y Colombia: hacia una nueva era de amistad. https://www.eltiempo.com/opinion/columnistas/china-y-colombia-hacia-una-nueva-era-de-amistad-3424797
Blu Radio. (2025, May). ¿Por qué China no eliminó la visa de turismo para los colombianos? Esto dice embajador en Colombia [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgvggRXM4OI

¹⁵ El Tiempo. (2025, May). Si Colombia se adhiere a la Franja y la Ruta de China, el Congreso o la Corte tendrían que revisar el Memorando. https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/gobierno/si-colombia-se-adhiere-a-la-franja-y-la-ruta-de-china-el-congreso-o-la-corte-tendrian-que-revisar-el-memorando-3452966