La adhesión de colombia a la iniciativa de la franja y la ruta de china: implicaciones económicas, comerciales y geopolíticas para el desarrollo del estado colombiano

Abstract

This research analyzes Colombia's participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promoted by the People's Republic of China, with the purpose of examining its main economic, commercial, and geopolitical implications for the development of the Colombian State. The study starts from a relevant structural condition: China has become one of Colombia's main trading partners; however, bilateral trade remains markedly asymmetric. China accounts for approximately 21.61% of Colombian imports, while its share of Colombian exports is around 4.96%. This difference highlights the need to examine not only the volume of bilateral trade but also its composition and its effects on Colombia's productive structure. Using a qualitative approach, the research develops a legal, economic, and geopolitical analysis of Colombia-China relations, drawing on the structuralist perspective of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the theory of complex interdependence. These approaches make it possible to understand that international cooperation can create opportunities for investment, infrastructure development, trade, and technology transfer, while also generating new forms of vulnerability when a State has limited productive, technological, or strategic capabilities. Particular attention is given to the Belt and Road Initiative as a mechanism for international cooperation and to the legal and administrative challenges associated with its implementation in Colombia. The study examines the tensions that may arise between international cooperation instruments and the principles governing public procurement, while emphasizing the importance of linking infrastructure projects to transparency, objective selection, fiscal sustainability, critical infrastructure protection, technology transfer, and territorial development. Based on the analysis, the research proposes that Colombia adopt a strategic approach to its relationship with China that goes beyond attracting investment or increasing imports. Instead, bilateral cooperation should be used as an instrument to strengthen domestic industry, diversify exports, increase value added, develop technological capabilities, and reduce strategic vulnerabilities. Accordingly, the study proposes guidelines concerning technology transfer, diversification of critical infrastructure suppliers, and reindustrialization focused on higher-value goods and services. The research concludes that Colombia's relationship with China should not be approached through positions of unconditional acceptance or rejection. The central challenge is to build a strategically managed form of interdependence in which international cooperation contributes to productive and technological development without undermining the State's capacity to protect the public interest, exercise its regulatory powers, and preserve its decision-making autonomy.