On the occasion of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Feb. 1-2 visit to Panama, China’s ambassador to that country, Xu Xueyuan, authored an article in the daily La [Estrella de Panama](https://www.laestrella.com.pa/mundo/exclusiva-china-reacciona-estados-unidos-por-favor-aprende-a-respetar-CF10516523}, entitled “United States, Please Learn to Respect.” Ambassador Xu notes, incisively, that Panama is so important to the U.S. “that it can’t stand that Panama cooperates with China.” The U.S. established relations with China in 1979, but when Panama did the same thing 38 years later, “why did the U.S. react with such fury?” China’s establishing of diplomatic ties with Panama (in 2017) was done transparently and with honor, “without any financial transactions or undercover deals.” So, why “does the U.S. see the operations of Chinese companies in Panama as such an outsized threat?”
Rubio arrived with much fanfare and protocol, but his impact was “greater than a tropical storm” with great turbulence. This was going to be the beginning of “a Golden age” of the Americas, but Panamanians “feel uneasy and say to themselves `what are they coming to do here?’” Ambassador Xu notes with some irony that Panama is so important to the US that it built the Canal, controlled the Canal zone for 85 years, sent U.S. troops to invade in 1989 and “according to U.S. authorities themselves don’t rule out the possibility of sending troops in again.” Xu points to the long history of Panama and China, as Panama was the country to which Chinese came 170 years ago to build the inter-oceanic railroad. China has never caused fear in Panama, because relations are based on mutual respect, equality, and provide development opportunities such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
But this is not the case with the U.S. because today it threatens Panama for not operating the Canal properly, for charging high tolls and taxes, and committing the sin of, “allowing Chinese companies to operate the ports!” The threat [from Trump] is “change or I’ll take action.” The Chinese ambassador reminds readers that “in the international community, all nations are equal and have the right to develop diplomatic relations autonomously. No one has the right to give orders or dictate guidelines to other nations. If the U.S. wants to create a `golden age’ for the Americas, it must first respect other nations and ask the people of Latin America what kind of age they want.”
