China’s Advance in Colombia in the Time of Gustavo Petro

China’s Advance in Colombia in the Time of Gustavo Petro By Dr. Evan Ellis, PhD | Center for Strategic & International Studies

“From May 12 to May 16, 2025, the author was in Bogotá, Colombia, to deliver a presentation to the New Granada Military University and 300 senior military officers at Colombia’s National War College on activities by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the country and the region. The visit coincided with Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s trip to Beijing as part of the fourth leadership forum between the PRC and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The China-CELAC summit was a symbolic milestone in the PRC’s continuing advance in the region, as it seeks to leverage the region’s reaction to the new “America First” policies of the United States. At the summit, Petro, president pro tempore of CELAC, joined the PRC Belt and Road Initiative, sought to join the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), engaged with the PRC on an offer to buy up to 24 J-10CE Chengdu Fighter aircraft, and visited the facilities of Huawei in Shenzhen, the favored contender to replace Western tech companies in providing a broad range of cloud, data, and telecommunication services for the Colombian government and commercial infrastructure. Less than a month earlier, the PRC donated 470 computers to the Colombian Foreign Ministry, creating risks of Chinese access to sensitive Colombian government data and communications.

Petro also signed 12 agreements during the trip, expressing interest in strengthening cooperation in investment, science, and a range of other areas. China has suggested, and Petro indicated his openness to, renewing Colombia’s previously abandoned initiative to negotiate a free trade agreement with the PRC, although with Colombia’s presidential elections less than a year away, and with the need for the Congress to ratify such an agreement, those consulted for this work universally regarded such aspirations as unrealistic.”

The work continues as follows:

• China’s Restrained Commercial Advance in Colombia
• The Broader Advance of China-Colombia Relations
• Risks of Future PRC Advances