Bolivians learn Chinese to boost their trade options

[pampango]

Source: BBC

A graduate from a language school in La Paz where class sizes for Chinese are growing each year, Norma Ramos believes the future will see ever closer ties with China. "I think it would be great if we could cement our relations with China. We've seen how Peru has developed after it signed a free trade agreement with China," she says.

As ordinary Bolivians acknowledge the growing economic importance of China, China itself is noticeably increasing its programme of co-operation with Bolivia.

China has said it will construct Bolivia's first satellite, as well as build a fast electric trainline for the country. It is also collaborating on mining and energy projects. But one of China's biggest interests is in Bolivia's rich natural resources, specifically its lithium deposits in the Uyuni desert, high in the Andes.

With its attractive, cheap products for export, and its growing portfolio of development projects within the country, China may be winning over the Bolivian government on one level, but is it winning on the question of lithium?

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8390614.stm

[On the Road]

1. Good Idea, But You Have to Get Them Young

I saw an Northwest Airlines employee (an African-American guy) in the Beijing airport speaking what sounded like perfect Chinese. I asked him how he got the tones down and he said "It took me ten years."

[WriteDown]

2. Make they your most favored trading nation...

It's great!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Interesting--when I was in China in 1990 and stayed at one of our sister schools,

the first non-Chinese person we met was a young Bolivian woman who was there learning Chinese in preparation for studying optometry.

Apparently, China has a scholarship program for Third World students, as does Japan.