South american voting patterns in the UNGA and economic dependence on China

After decades of intensive growth, China's economic projection has become truly global and Beijing is now considered capable of leveraging its massive economic size to gain influence and promote its strategic interests far beyond the Asian neighborhood. Even within the Western Hemisphere - and in South America, more specifically - China now plays a crucial economic role as both a trade partner and a major investor. In particular, the article will address whether a correlation exists between China's economic penetration and South American states' voting behavior in the United Nations General Assembly between 2002 and 2019. With economic dependence – defined as a highly unbalanced economic and commercial relationship – on China as the main explicative variable, the article will verify if South American countries with high dependence display a higher degree of voting coincidence with China over i) all resolutions and ii) human-rights related resolutions. It will also test whether more economically dependent South American states have stepped away to a greater extent from the United States in their voting patterns at the UNGA. To this purpose, only "Important votes" - as defined by the US Department of State's yearly report on Voting Practices in the UN - will be taken into consideration.