Chile and China established diplomatic relations in 1970, with Chile becoming the first South American country to officially recognize the People’s Republic. Building on that political foundation, the relationship evolved into a more active commercial dimension by the late 1990s, when Chile became the first Latin American nation to support China’s accession to the WTO (1999) and to recognize it as a market economy (2004). These gestures became the cornerstones for deeper negotiations, fostering an atmosphere of trust that led to the signing of the Free Trade Agreement in 2005, which was the very first FTA of China with a Latin American country.
The bilateral partnership was not limited to the liberalization of goods, but expanded into supplementary agreements on services and investments during the following decade, accompanied by an exponential increase in bilateral trade and new areas of cooperation. This phase of deepening went into further progress in 2016, when both countries elevated their ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, consolidating the political will to strengthen not only trade relations but also institutional and technical cooperation across multiple fields.
In recent years, the modernization of the FTA has incorporated disciplines characteristic of 21st-century trade, such as e-commerce, customs facilitation, competition, and environmental sustainability. To this is added Chile’s accession to the Belt and Road Initiative, which opens new opportunities in connectivity and infrastructure.
