At this year’s Rim of the Pacific Exercise, Latin America’s interests in the Pacific have taken on new significance. For the first time in the history of the biennial exercise, every country on South America’s Pacific Coast has sent serv­ice members to participate.

The Navy’s Hawaii-based Pacific Fleet, which hosts the exercise, is mostly focused on the Western Pacific and Asia as tensions simmer in the region between the U.S. and China. But as Asian economies grow, ties between Asia and Latin America has continued to flourish as ships traverse the world’s largest ocean, hauling goods back and forth.

“We split the world up with artificial lines in the United States, and that causes a lot of friction,” said Vice Adm. Michael Boyle, commander of the Navy’s San Diego-based 3rd Fleet and the officer leading Task Force RIMPAC for the exercise.

The U.S. military divides its global operations into regional commands. U.S. Indo-­Pacific Command at Camp Smith is the nerve center of U.S. operations across Oceania and South and Central Asia. South American operations are overseen by U.S. Southern Command in Florida.

“It causes friction because it’s the United States’ divvy up of the world, and not all other countries that we work with see the world the same way as we see it,” said Boyle.

Over the past few dec­ades, the Navy and Coast Guard have focused their partnerships with Latin American countries around drug war operations, interdicting ships suspected of smuggling drugs to the United States.

The U.S. government spends billions in operations, sending weapons and training security forces. Despite the billions spent, bloody gang and cartel wars still rage, and the flow of drugs has by many counts increased. But drug smuggling isn’t the only crime running rampant in the waters of the Eastern Pacific.

For RIMPAC 2022, warships and marines from Mexico and Chile as well as a ship from Peru have been participating. The Chilean and Peruvian ships at RIMPAC trained with a task force aimed mostly at doing at-sea interdiction and boarding operations. Staff officers from Colombia and Ecuador are also participating.

This iteration of the exercise marks the first time Ecuador has participated.

“I would guess that the Ecuadorean participation this year is probably more to do with their motivation stemming from Chinese activities rather than our motivations,” said William Wieninger, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki.

In the summer of 2020, a massive fleet of more than 300 Chinese-flagged fishing vessels was spotted illegally fishing in Ecuador’s Galapagos Marine Reserve. It led to a standoff between Ecuadorean security services and the Chinese fleet.

During the standoff the U.S. Coast Guard redirected one of its cutters toward the Galapagos Islands to assist Ecuadorean authorities, using a drone to gather evidence of illegal activity, which it shared with its Ecuadorean counterparts.

The fishing vessels made numerous transfers to transship massive industrial freezer vessels known as reefers that can haul mass takes of seafood back to ports in Asia. But the fishing wasn’t limited to the Galapagos — and the Chinese fleet didn’t leave when it was done there.

Chinese-flagged vessels have continued heavy fishing up and down South America’s Pacific coastline as Ecuadorean, Chilean, Peruvian and Colombia ships monitored and even, occasionally, fired warning shots at the Chinese vessels. The four countries have since increased cooperation at sea.

In October 2020 the U.S. Coast Guard announced that illegal fishing had surpassed piracy as the top global security threat on the high seas. Depletion of fisheries around the world has led to violent confrontation between fishermen competing for dwindling fish stocks and driven others to turn to smuggling and other crimes at sea to make ends meet. In the Pacific islands, where fish are central to both the diet and economies of many communities, fears are particularly acute.

“I’m working very diligently with Chile and Peru to figure out where we can come together with Australia and New Zealand to focus on illegal fishing in the Pacific island nations as a focus point for that grouping of countries that are participating in RIMPAC,” said Boyle. “If we were to do that, then maybe that frees up ships to go to other places where we might have a hot spot where we need to pause for forces in order to counter some other sort of aggression.”

But while tensions have risen at sea, Chinese companies have continued to invest in Latin America on land. Ecuador, Chile and Peru have all signed onto Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a series of Chinese-­funded infrastructure projects. It includes port facilities, airstrips and other projects aimed at promoting trade with China.

“Chile’s big interest is they sell a lot of copper and primary mineral exports to China, right? So they have a huge trading relationship with the PRC. So there’s an economic interest there,” said Wieninger.

Some analysts have warned that the BRI is a way of laying the groundwork for facilities that the Chinese military and spy agencies can use around the world. Wieninger said that in some cases there may be security aspects to some projects, but that the extent is unclear and that Western analysts can often misread China’s priorities.

“China is a rising power. It has a legitimate sort of, I think, reason to aspire to greater respect. … For (Chinese President) Xi Jinping, the No. 1 thing when he gets up in the morning isn’t so much to worry about the United States, it’s to worry about economic growth at home, because that’s what’s keeping him in power,” he said. “Basically, the Chinese government is putting people to work and generating economic growth for its companies by doing this.”

The U.S., for its part, has its own checkered history in Latin America. During the early 20th century the U.S. military engaged in numerous military interventions and invasions across Central America now known as “The Banana Wars,” largely aimed at protecting American business interests. During the Cold War U.S. intelligence agencies backed coups, dictators and occasionally drug traffickers that they believed would help them fight communists.

Wieninger said that while the Chilean military has often eagerly partnered with the Americans for training, including previous RIMPAC exercises, that legacy has cast a long shadow.

“There’s some anti-Americanism from the Cold War and before when the U.S. was kind of heavy-handed in our approach to Latin America, but that seems to be easing from the conversations I’ve had,” said Wie­ninger. Meanwhile, as China continues its foray in Latin America and elsewhere, some in the region have become more fastidious with Chinese-backed projects and initiatives.

“We sometimes make a mistake by exaggerating the threats (China) pose and become overly reactive to it,” said Wieninger. “A lot of times if we just sit back and let them make mistakes, we’ll come out ahead. We don’t want to let ourselves be alarmed excessively so that we start making mistakes.”

RIMPAC 2022 has put its Latin American participants to the test, some more than others. On July 17 a fire broke out in the engine room of the Peruvian navy’s ship, the BAP Guise, seriously wounding two crew members. The crew battled the blaze for several hours before finally extinguishing it.

As they fought the flames, they worked with other members of their task force. They handed off the wounded sailors to a helicopter from the French navy frigate FS Prairial, which brought them to the U.S. Coast Guard’s cutter CGC Midgett. A U.S. Navy helicopter from aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln then picked up the injured sailors and brought them to Oahu for further treatment.

“The professionalism of the crew to handle a fire, get the fire under control, work with an international contingent to evacuate two wounded crew members and then to safely get the ship back to port speaks volumes,” said Boyle.