How China Became Part of Latin American Studies

We are pleased to introduce this special issue of Issues & Studies devoted to the connections between China and Latin America's political economy. In recent years, China has become a commont 1eme in Latin American studies. The excellent articles presented in this issue both illustrate and reinforce this trend. When did such interest in China emerge? What are the intellectual drivers of this process? In the first pa叫 of this essay, we document the emergence of China (and more generally, East Asia) as a paradoxical focus for researchers dealing with Latin America. The second section explores the historical forces and the themes driving this focus. In the concluding section, we introduce the papers in this special issue and identify their contributions to an emerging field.