MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine President tells Chinese TV claims over Malvinas will go on

“We are on China's side in its claim that there is only one China,” Fernández also pointed out

Argentine President Alberto Fernández Friday told a Chinese TV station that his country will keep up its sovereignty claims over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands.

 “We are a people of peace, we have always been against that rupture of territorial sovereignty and that is why we continue to demand that the United Kingdom ceases its occupation of the Malvinas Islands and we are extremely concerned that they could become a place where the South Atlantic is militarized,” said Fernández during an interview with China Central Television (CCTV).

For this reason, “we are on China's side in its claim that there is only one China,” Fernández also pointed out.

The South American leader also spoke of “an enormous potential to increase trade with China,” particularly in agribusiness and mineral production. “We have in our country many Chinese companies working in agribusiness, cereals, lithium, [and] gas, among other sectors,” he noted.

Fernández also highlighted that Chinese President Xi Jinping had been “central to making the rapprochement of our peoples a reality.” He also thanked China for siding with Argentina in times of hardship and insisted on the existing “huge potential” for ties to “be deepened.”

“In a difficult moment, [China] has sided with us and helped us with the [currency] swap that allows us to improve trade exchange,” Fernández also explained. “Good relations improve ties and erase distances,” Fernández also said.

China “has bet on what it clearly sees as a challenge for its development, food, and energy”, while “we have the capacity to produce both, so we associate our resources to Chinese capitals,” the Argentine president also pointed out.

“I would like investments that are not merely extractive, that is, to extract only the resources, but that somehow add value, and that is why I insist every time I talk to a Chinese investor, that if we are going to exploit lithium, we should turn it into batteries and export those batteries,” Fernández went on.

Regarding Argentina's joining the Chinese “Silk Road,” Fernández said that “we will be able to balance a little more” the trade balance, because “that is where both countries win, that is the work we have to face, and China is helping us a lot to achieve that goal.”

“After having received a country in virtual cessation of payments, in the first two years I had to face a pandemic and in the other two years the consequences of an unexpected war: that is why I think the results are positive,” Fernández said about his government which ends on Dec. 9 this year.

“We were able to find agreements with creditors, recover, in 2021 we grew 10.3 percent, and this year that ended around 5.7 percent and that shows us that we are on the right path for development, and we were able to accumulate reserves,” Fernández also said.

Regarding regional integration, Fernández insisted that “Latin America has to stand up to the world and negotiate as a privileged region, as a producer of food and energy and that puts us in a very good place to discuss with the global world.”

“We have to change the global economic system, because the concentration of income in so few, while misery and poverty are distributed in millions, speaks of the injustice of the system,” the South American leader also argued while opposing the world's bipolarity “as it existed during the years of the Cold War.”

“That is why the interesting thing about President Xi's proposal is not to promote that, respecting all of us and each one with its autonomy. I value that very much,” he elaborated. “The pandemic has exposed the unfairness of global economic development,” he went on.

The President expressed his “certainty” that Brazil's rejoining the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) will allow advancing “in the best way towards the reality of regional integration” and trusted that the organization “may deepen its ties with China” as it considers them as a “strategic” issue. Fernández currently holds the pro tempore presidency of the bloc.

Fernández said it was “unfortunate ... that Brazil has left the international scene” as a result of the policies implemented by former President Jair Bolsonaro.

The Argentine President also said he had “never” supported former US President Donald Trump of “political fear towards China” while insisting that Argentina was “a sovereign country and has the right to establish ties with those it considers its friends and with those who offer the best possibilities of development.”