Abstract
This article analyzes the profound historical disconnection that characterizes the approach of the Chinese international relations academy to Hispanic America. It argues that China has uncritically adopted a dual hegemonic narrative —inherited from the Anglo-Saxon tradition that equates the viceregal period with extractive colonialism, and from the Latin American left that attributes all contemporary ills of the region to said period— which prevents it from understanding the historical specificity of the three centuries of Hispanic viceregal rule. By analyzing the institutional evolution of Latin American studies in China, its academic production, the Global South framework, and the ideological influence of Latin American interlocutors, the article demonstrates that the viceregal period constitutes a terra incognita in Chinese academia. This trap of the hegemonic narrative has practical consequences for Chinese diplomacy, investment, and cultural cooperation in the region. The article concludes that overcoming this trap is a necessary condition for Sino-Hispanic American cooperation to aspire to genuine horizontality.
