The presidential replacements have taken into account Chile the sign of an institutional attachment adorned with signs of cordiality. It happened when Michelle Bachelet gave way to magnate Sebastián Piñera on two occasions. The right-wing president did the same with the young leftist Gabriel Boric. That rite, carefully respected, has just suffered. The transfer of command between Boric and the far-right José Antonio Kast had a breakdown that exceeds the ideology of each of them to become one more area of the dispute between the United States and China. Kast terminated the coordination process with the outgoing Government after a tense meeting with Boric at the Palacio de la Moneda based on disagreements related to a submarine cable project that should link the Chilean city of Valparaíso with Hong Kong. This is a major work between two countries that have just celebrated the two decades of its free trade agreementand which has the participation of important companies from the Asian giant. China is Chile’s main trading partner and the deepening of these ties is not tolerated by Donald Trump’s administration.
Kast is due to take office on March 11. The process is already marked by unprecedented friction with the outgoing Government. You have to go back to the departure of the dictatorship, in 1990, to find a time of such institutional tension. The submarine cable is part of a digital connectivity strategy and diversification of data routes, but it is at the same time the scene of a technological competition between Beijing and Washington at a time when all international conflicts, from Venezuela to Iran, have at one point the confrontation between both powers as a background. The US has imposed visa restrictions on the Chilean Minister of Transportation, Juan Carlos Muñoz, to the Undersecretary of Telecommunications, Claudio Araya, and other officials, for “erode regional security in our hemisphere”. Never has a Chilean authority been subject to a measure of this nature since the recovery of democracy in 1990. Boric described this measure as “arbitrary, unilateral and surprising.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alberto Van Klaveren, told the American ambassador Brandon Judd that at the moment the bilateral initiative had not been approved and was being evaluated. Strictly speaking, a decree had been signed that was later annulled due to alleged technical errors.
Before assuming office, Kast will travel to the United States as a participant in the Shield of The Americas forum who has open sympathy for Trumpism. The far-right did not want to appear there without previously stating his dissidence with the issue of the submarine cable. And that occurred in the middle of a new meeting between Boric and his successor that ended abruptly. According to the current president, Kast demanded that he retract his statements regarding a previous telephone conversation during which the current executive authority would have informed him about warnings from the United States against the progress of the project. Boric rejected that request and his interlocutor “decided that the following bilaterals would not happen”. Kast’s advisors admitted the existence of the previous conversation, but relativized its content.
An ancient suspicion
The participation of China Mobile In a project of such scope he did nothing more than update Washington’s old misgivings regarding the economic complementarity between Beijing and Santiago de Chile. The US had already opposed a similar initiative in 2019, while Piñera governed. Seven years later, the White House has found more favorable conditions to stop this work after the arrival in La Moneda of a head of state determined to unconditionally align itself with Washington. “I deeply regret that the elected president, José Antonio Kast, has made the decision to tarnish the healthy and proud republican tradition to carry out a transfer of command that puts the continuity of the State and the well-being of Chileans at the center,” Boric wrote in X. “Chile deserves that its authorities live up to what is entrusted to them. For this reason, I reiterate my willingness and that of my entire Government to continue the agreed transfer conversations with such important issues as childhood policies, finances, the Peace and Understanding Commission, migration and everything that is necessary.”
According to the portal The Counter, The conflict arising from the submarine cable is not exhausted with the current mandate. If Kast decides to follow the US and stop the project “will send a clear signal of hemispheric strategic priority. But the cost could be felt in the export sector and in Asian investment expectations.“. Chile exported to China in 2025 for 3.5 billion dollars, 1.32% more than the previous year. The accumulated investment of Chinese companies in Chile exceeded 1.6 billion dollars.
Subscribe to continue reading
