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By Wang Yusheng

The US media have gone all-out in their analysis and comments on US President George W. Bush's ongoing five-nation visit in Latin America. Yesterday Bush arrived in Mexico City on the last leg of his trip, which has taken him to Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia and Guatemala.

In varied degrees, all admit that US influence in Latin America is on the wane, losing dominance in its backyard. Media have highlighted the fact that, because the United States has been focusing all its attention on anti-terrorism, it has not invested enough in Latin America. It has simply ignored it.

So Bush has designated this year as the year of fulfilling the US promise to Latin America.

Bush already announced that the United States would spend tens of millions of dollars to improve education, housing and healthcare across the region, in order to renew close relationships with Latin American countries, repair the fence in its backyard, and compete for influence in the area with anti-American leftists represented by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The US media have been on target.

Ever since President James Monroe announced the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which declared that Latin America was off limits to any other world power, it has remained a reliable backyard of the United States. Especially since the end of World War II, the United States has had a say in all major Latin American affairs, extending to orchestrating wars or regime changes against countries that opposed it.

However, since the 1990s, it seems that the US policy has not been achieving the desired effect.

In 2003, members of the Organization of American States (OAS) unanimously condemned the failed coup in Venezuela, in line with its Inter-American Democratic Charter.

Later, the OAS members vetoed the US-backed candidate for the new OAS secretary-general. The American Free-Trade Zone, for which the White House started to push in 2001, seems to be in tatters as the Southern Common Market has evolved, linking four South American countries with a population of 190 million.

Last year, elections took place in 10 countries in Latin America, of which seven elected presidents were seen as either anti-American or not worthy of American attention. Against the wishes of the United States, Latin American countries also joined a conference with heads of states from Arab countries last year.

As longtime leader of the Americas, the United States can no longer sit still.

Bush has ventured south against all odds. The huge amount of promised assistance from the US may not be able to pay to open all channels and mend the fence. The US has to dig deeper into the roots of its disfavor with the Latin American countries and work harder at its strategic orientation.

Even without opening old wounds, the 1980s alone was the lost decade for Latin America. In 1990, the US worked out the Washington Consensus, which on the surface was attempting to help Latin American countries to regain what they'd lost in the previous 10 years.

However in actuality, the 10 reform measures from the Washington Consensus ignored the interests and realities of those countries while demanding that they open all their manufacturing and capital markets, loosen their control over foreign currencies, and achieve an absolute market economy.

These measures, interfering in the internal affairs of these countries, have done more harm than good for those countries.

Local Mexican media pointed out that the Washington Consensus does not hide its intention of forcing the Americas onto the US track, but not a single economic and political jacket the United States has made fits the region.

The Latin American countries have also learned painful lessons from the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the shock therapy in Russia.

As a result, these countries are in search of a growth formula better suited to their own circumstances. They are demanding that new cooperative relationships be established on an equal footing with the United States.

Carrying with him plenty of offers on his visit to the five countries in Latin America, Bush will surely make some headway in improving US relations.

But the best way to basically reverse the deteriorating trend in the relations between the United States and the region in the words of local Mexican media is for the United States to recognize that it has neither the responsibility nor the duty to order the Latin American people around and tell them what to do.

Wang Yusheng is a senior diplomat and a Beijing-based researcher in international relations.

(China Daily March 13, 2007)