What does China’s first naval visit to Uruguay say about its Latin American ambitions?

The PLA Navy hospital ship Silk Road Ark arrived at the Uruguayan port of Montevideo last Tuesday for a four-day technical stop.The port call, as reported by China’s state news agency Xinhua, marked the first visit by a Chinese naval vessel to Uruguay – which sits between South America’s two biggest economies, Brazil and Argentina.Analysts said the inaugural visit signalled that Beijing’s efforts to expand its military exchanges in the western hemisphere were unaffected by America’s military raid in Venezuela earlier this month.Amid the broader US-China competition for regional influence, Uruguay has sped up economic and diplomatic alignment with China.The Chinese naval visit came at a sensitive time – barely a fortnight after the US captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro as part of President Donald Trump’s attempts to restore Washington’s strategic sway in the region.Cui Shoujun, professor and deputy director of the Institute of International Development Studies at Renmin University, said the port call indicated that China’s naval exchanges with South American countries remained unaffected.