Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
A new multipolar world or a new cold war? Latin America, China and the rising global South
Long having been considered the ‘US’s backyard,’ Latin America is the crucible of anti-imperialist struggle – yet with the rise of China as an economic and ideological counterweight to Washington, we see a new phase of that struggle emerge, writes BEN CHACKO 
A supporter of Brazilian President Lula da Silva of the Workers Party holds up a girl during a May Day rally in Sao Paulo, Brazil

DURING the student-led protests that shook Chile a few years ago, a prominent rallying cry was “neoliberalism was born in Chile and will die in Chile.”

It points to the front-line place Latin America has had when it comes to clashes between economic systems and between imperialism and decolonisation. Many of the Latin American revolutionary projects that inspire us, that lots of us come to Adelante! to hear more about, are independence struggles as well as class struggles.

The two are bound together. The poverty and underdevelopment of much of the Third World is down to the domination of economies by Western corporations controlling their natural resources.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’

Neil Terry
Durham Miners’ Gala 2025 / 13 July 2025
13 July 2025
Joanne Thomas campaigning for safe shopwork
Durham Miners’ Gala 2025 / 12 July 2025
12 July 2025

Incoming Usdaw general secretary JOANNE THOMAS talks to Ben Chacko about workers’ rights, Labour and how to arrest the decline of the high street

Alan Mardghum
Durham Miners’ Gala 2025 / 11 July 2025
11 July 2025

Durham Miners’ Association general secretary ALAN MARDGHUM speaks to Ben Chacko ahead of Gala Day 2025

Similar stories
Cubans march to Revolution Square to mark May Day, in Havana, May 1, 2025
Features / 4 May 2025
4 May 2025

Cuba Solidarity Campaign secretary BERNARD REGAN says the inhuman blockade of Cuba not only continues, but the Donald Trump administration is ratcheting up aggression against both Havana and Latin America more widely

US President Donald Trump walks up the stairs to board Air F
Features / 27 February 2025
27 February 2025
The US projects its nation’s own sins, from funding narco crime to authoritarian rule, onto its ‘back yard’ — lashing out as Latin America drifts further into the multipolar future, write FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ and ROGER D HARRIS
Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel, centre, and Raul Castro,
Features / 9 February 2025
9 February 2025
BEN CHACKO appreciates the largest Adelante! conference yet, and how much there was to learn about decolonisation and defiance across Latin America and beyond
BY POPULAR ACCLAIM: Venezuelan President
Nicolas Maduro arri
Features / 23 January 2025
23 January 2025
FIONA SIM sees the Venezuelan anti-fascist and anti-imperialist initiatives as offering hope to the rest of the world