Party Diplomacy and Arenas of Authoritarian Cooperation: The CCP’s ILD in Central America

• In Event: Environment, Infrastructure and Geopolitics

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of the International Liaison Department (ILD) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an instrument of authoritarian diffusion in Central America, focusing on its ties with political parties in Costa Rica, Panama, and El Salvador. It adopts the framework of Authoritarian Gravity Centers (AGCs), which is useful for examining how the ILD promotes normative, organizational, and symbolic convergence through instruments of party diplomacy. Based on a qualitative study coded in Atlas.ti, the analysis identifies patterns of interaction across four arenas of authoritarian cooperation: institutional, ideational, administrative, and policy. The article addresses two underexplored dimensions of China’s projection in Latin America: party-to-party diplomacy as a mechanism of influence, and the CCP’s political objectives beyond economic cooperation. By offering empirical evidence on the ILD’s practices, the study contributes to documenting a discreet yet strategic form of authoritarian projection in the region—key to understanding China’s political expansion beyond Asia from a comparative and transnational perspective.

Author

• Cesar Santos, Gobierno y Análisis Político A.C.