In recent weeks, official Chinese media have devoted much space to the life and exploits of Che Guevara, as well as events in Cuba marking the 40th anniversary of his death, which fell on October 9. In recounting Guevara’s credentials as a revolutionary, emphasis was placed on the inspirational role Mao Zedong played in his life, especially in the area of guerrilla warfare tactics. Guevara, “the Red Robin Hood,” is portrayed as having been “nervous” and “emotional” in his November 1960 meeting with Mao in Beijing, calling himself a “pupil” of the “maestro.” Considerable press coverage was devoted also to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s October 14 weekly radio and television program “Alo Presidente,” which was broadcast from Santa Clara, Cuba, where Guevara is buried. The fact that Fidel Castro telephoned Chavez during the live show was recounted in at least three separate reports in People’s Daily. The two heads-of-state reportedly condemned the “hegemonic conduct of the United States” in the course of discussing Guevara’s legacy and the history of national liberation movements in Latin America. Effusive in their praise of the socialist icon, Chinese media reports invariably portray Guevara as an “idol,” a “hero,” and a “legendary revolutionary.” Significantly, Xinhua characterizes him as a “driving force of socialism in 21st century Latin America” that can “energize” the anti-American populist movement spearheaded by Hugo Chavez. Beijing has been keeping a close eye on the “left turn” of Latin America and the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) proposed by Chavez, “the primary South American tormentor of the United States.”
Chavez visited China four times between 1999 and 2006. During the most recent trip, in August 2006, he called for a “strategic alliance” and a “Great Wall” against American hegemony. Shortly after that visit, Caracas announced that Beijing would be investing roughly $5 billion in energy projects in Venezuela by 2012. Also by 2012, Beijing will help Venezuela build 18 tankers to boost the latter’s capacity to deliver crude oil to China. In March of this year, after meeting an official from the China National Petroleum Corp. in Caracas, Chavez indicated that Venezuela was on track to meet its target of selling to China a million barrels of oil a day by 2012. This is part of Venezuela’s effort to reduce its dependence on the U.S. market, where it currently sells 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. China is the world’s second largest consumer of oil after the United States. In recent years, Beijing has made investments worth tens of billions of dollars in energy and infrastructure projects in Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil, putting its energy interests in the region in direct competition with those of Washington. While Beijing’s foray into Latin America is generally regarded as economically driven, strategic interests may help explain Beijing’s desire to keep alive the memory of Che Guevara, that ultimate emblem of anti-Americanism, amid the rising tide of anti-American sentiment in Washington’s backyard. For the Chinese Communist party, the perpetuation of Guevara’s legacy serves an additional domestic purpose. As China makes its transition to a market economy, the country’s youth are facing an ideological crisis. An article in Beijing Youth Daily, a newspaper popular among college students, urged readers to reflect on the legendary warrior’s “triumph of the spirit over crude material pursuit.” In report after report, Guevara is lionized for having abandoned a life of comfort to take up the revolutionary cause. But in China, crude material pursuit seems to have gained an upper hand.
