Bolivia’s Ties to China and Russia Under Attack

In a March 2 press conference in La Paz, Bolivia’s Minister to the Presidency, Juan Ramon Quintana, warned of a destabilization campaign against President Evo Morales whose aim is to sabotage his government’s alliance with BRICS members China and Russia.

Quintana noted that the Feb. 21 referendum in which Morales was defeated in his bid to run for re­election in 2019, was followed by an attempt to implicate the President in an alleged influence­ peddling scandal ­­clearly an intelligence operation ­­ involving a former lover and the Chinese engineering firm CAMC. Behind this, Quintana charged, is an effort to “weaken the economic integration that Bolivia has achieved with China through projects in the areas of hydrocarbons, physical infrastructure and technological development, among others,” www.laprensa.com reported. “There is a geopolitical and strategic interest aimed at reducing the intensity of Bolivia’s relationship with China and Russia, and the projects we are developing to create a strong state in the country.”

Exemplary of the alliances of which Quintana spoke was the agreement signed March 6 in La Paz between Energy Minister Luis Alberto Sanchez and Sergey Kiriyenko, director ­general of Russia’s atomic energy agency Rosatom to jointly build a state­-of-­the-­art Nuclear Technology Research and Development Center over the next four years, El Deber reported March 6. Present at the signing, President Morales underscored Bolivia’s right to develop nuclear technology, and said that the new center will be the largest and most modern such center in South America.

“Now we are able to deliver major cooperative projects, in this case with Russia as well as with China, and Europe sometimes. How nice that some partners come here with investment and cooperation ­­not just aggression and provocation,” Morales said, according to Channel News Asia. Kirenyenko reported that Argentina could also play a role in the development of the new center, given its expertise in the nuclear field, and said that part of his delegation would be traveling to Buenos Aires from La Paz to meet with relevant nuclear officials there.