The dragon and the gringo

TIME was when cash-strapped Latin American governments would turn to the IMF for the bitter medicine of its bail-outs. No longer. Over the past dozen years the supercycle of rising commodity prices has swelled the region’s coffers, while even the most fiscally incontinent autocrat has been able to count on the Chinese chequebook.

Now the bonanza is over. Commodity prices are back to their trough of the great recession of 2008. And the bank manager in Beijing is learning to say no. With queues outside sparsely stocked supermarkets in Caracas and investors fearing a default on his country’s foreign debt, Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, flew to China this month to beg for emergency cash. All he got was an apparent repackaging of an existing $20 billion in credits for long-term investments.