Analysis of: Peru’s interim president embroiled in scandal over secret meetings with Chinese businessmen
The Guardian | January 22, 2026
TL;DR
Peru's president caught in secret meetings with Chinese businessmen as US and China compete for Latin American dominance. The scandal reveals how peripheral nations become pawns in inter-imperial rivalry while domestic elites play both sides.
The 'Chifagate' scandal engulfing Peru's interim president José Jerí illuminates far more than individual corruption—it exposes the structural position of peripheral nations caught between competing imperial powers. While the immediate controversy centers on secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen, the deeper story concerns the intensifying US-China competition for influence in Latin America, with Peru as a strategic prize due to its mineral wealth and the new Chinese-built Chancay deepwater port. The framing of this scandal reveals ideological mechanisms at work. The Guardian's coverage emphasizes the meetings' secrecy and the Chinese connections, while the simultaneous announcement of a $1.5 billion US military sale to Peru receives matter-of-fact treatment as promoting 'political stability, peace and economic progress.' This asymmetry naturalizes Western intervention while pathologizing Chinese economic engagement. The article's reference to Peru's 'chronically corrupt and unstable politics'—seven presidents since 2018—obscures how this instability itself reflects the contradictions of dependent capitalist development and the impossibility of serving both domestic elites and imperial interests simultaneously. The material stakes are substantial: China has become Peru's primary trading partner and built critical infrastructure, while the US responds with military assistance designed to maintain strategic leverage. Peru's comprador political class, represented by figures like Jerí, must navigate these competing pressures while extracting what benefits they can. The presence of individuals connected to illegal timber trafficking networks points to how resource extraction under peripheral capitalism operates through shadowy networks linking local elites, foreign capital, and state power—regardless of which imperial center predominates.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Peruvian comprador political elite (Jerí and predecessors), Chinese business interests (Yang Zhihua, Cosco Shipping), US state apparatus (State Department, Defense Security Cooperation Agency), Peruvian working class and Indigenous communities, Illegal resource extraction networks (Los Hostiles de la Amazonia)
Beneficiaries: Chinese capital seeking trade routes and resource access, US military-industrial complex via $1.5B equipment sale, Peruvian political-business intermediaries like Yang Zhihua, Transnational capital requiring port infrastructure
Harmed Parties: Peruvian working class facing continued instability, Indigenous communities affected by timber trafficking, Peruvian sovereignty subordinated to imperial competition, Amazon ecosystems exploited through illegal extraction
The scandal reveals a tripartite power structure: competing imperial powers (US and China) vie for influence over a dependent Peruvian state, while local comprador elites serve as intermediaries extracting personal benefit from their gatekeeping role. The Peruvian masses remain spectators to decisions about their country's economic future, with elections and impeachment proceedings serving as pressure release valves rather than mechanisms for genuine self-determination.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: China as Peru's primary trading partner, Strategic Chancay deepwater port enabling express trade routes, Hydroelectric concessions held by Chinese-connected businessmen, US military equipment sales worth $1.5 billion, Illegal timber extraction networks worth investigating, Naval base relocation enabling port expansion
Peru occupies a classic peripheral position in the global division of labor—exporting raw materials and primary commodities while importing manufactured goods and capital. The Chancay port intensifies this extractive relationship, facilitating faster export of Peruvian resources to Chinese industry. The hydroelectric concession mentioned represents infrastructure built to serve export-oriented production rather than domestic needs. Meanwhile, the timber trafficking network reveals how legal and illegal extraction operate as a continuum under peripheral capitalism.
Resources at Stake: Strategic Pacific port access, Peruvian mineral and timber resources, Hydroelectric energy capacity, Naval/military positioning in South America, Trade route control between Asia and South America
Historical Context
Precedents: 19th century British-US competition for Latin American influence, Cold War US interventions to prevent non-aligned development, Structural adjustment programs subordinating Latin American economies, 2019 Bolivian coup following lithium nationalization disputes, Historical pattern of seven Peruvian presidents since 2018
This represents a recurring pattern in monopoly capitalism's imperialist phase: peripheral nations become sites of inter-imperial competition, with local elites serving as compradors who facilitate extraction regardless of which power predominates. Peru's political instability—seven presidents in eight years—reflects the impossibility of stable governance when the state must simultaneously serve competing foreign capitals and manage domestic class contradictions. The current US-China rivalry echoes earlier British-American competition, with infrastructure investment (ports, railroads) as the mechanism for establishing economic dominance.
Contradictions
Primary: The fundamental contradiction between Peru's formal political sovereignty and its economic subordination to imperial powers creates perpetual instability, as no government can satisfy both foreign capital's demands and domestic legitimacy requirements.
Secondary: US rhetoric of 'stability and progress' contradicts its destabilizing interventions, Chinese 'development' infrastructure primarily serves extraction rather than local development, Democratic processes (elections, impeachment) cannot address structurally determined outcomes, Anti-corruption discourse targets individuals while systemic corruption remains necessary for peripheral capitalism to function
The immediate contradiction may resolve through Jerí's impeachment or survival until April elections, but the structural contradiction will persist and intensify. As US-China competition escalates, Peru's political class will face increasing pressure to choose sides, potentially triggering more dramatic instability. The possibilities for genuine transformation require building working-class organization capable of challenging the entire framework of dependent development—a difficult task given the fragmentation evidenced by rapid presidential turnover.
Global Interconnections
This scandal is inseparable from the broader restructuring of global capitalism as China challenges US hegemony. Latin America has become a key arena for this competition, with China offering infrastructure investment and trade relationships that often provide better immediate terms than traditional Western institutions. The Chancay port represents China's 'Belt and Road' strategy reaching the Americas, creating alternative circuits of accumulation that bypass US-dominated financial infrastructure. Yet this inter-imperial rivalry does not offer peripheral nations genuine alternatives—both powers seek to maintain Latin America's position as a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods. The presence of illegal timber trafficking networks connected to figures meeting with the president illustrates how resource extraction under any imperial arrangement relies on violence and illegality at the frontier. Indigenous communities facing this extraction, like those whose leader's murder is mentioned in the related article, bear the human cost of competition for 'influence' conducted in Lima boardrooms and Washington policy circles.
Conclusion
The Chifagate scandal reveals how inter-imperial competition between the US and China creates impossible conditions for peripheral state managers while offering no genuine development path for working people. For Peruvian workers and Indigenous communities, the question is not which imperial power to align with, but how to build the organizational capacity to challenge dependent development itself. The rapid cycling of presidents demonstrates the exhaustion of elite political options within the current framework. Whether this instability creates openings for popular organization or merely continues the revolving door depends on forces largely invisible in this coverage—the state of labor unions, Indigenous movements, and left parties capable of articulating an alternative to managed dependency.
Suggested Reading
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of inter-imperial rivalry for colonial spheres of influence directly illuminates the US-China competition for Latin American markets and resources that underlies this scandal.
- The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality by Jason Hickel (2017) Hickel's accessible account of how global inequality is maintained through unequal exchange and structural dependency explains why Peru remains trapped in a primary commodity export role despite decades of 'development.'
- The New Imperialism by David Harvey (2003) Harvey's concept of 'accumulation by dispossession' helps explain how infrastructure projects like the Chancay port facilitate ongoing extraction from peripheral economies.
- The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961) Fanon's analysis of the national bourgeoisie in post-colonial nations as compradors serving foreign capital illuminates the structural position of Peru's political elite navigating between imperial powers.
Editorial Note: This analysis applies a dialectical materialist framework to news events. It represents one interpretive perspective and should not be considered objective reporting.
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