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Igor Patrick

Beijing congratulated Colombia on its presidential run-off and said it would work with the incoming government of Abelardo de la Espriella, the far-right lawyer who has promised to pull the country back towards the United States.
Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun made the remarks on Monday, a day after a preliminary count put de la Espriella narrowly ahead of his leftist rival, Senator Ivan Cepeda.
“China … congratulates Colombia on the smooth second round of presidential elections,” he said, adding that Beijing viewed the relationship “from a strategic height and long-term perspective” and stood ready to work with the new government to advance bilateral ties.
But the count is not yet final, as Cepeda is challenging results at about 33,000 polling stations, and outgoing President Gustavo Petro, whose coalition he represented, has alleged irregularities without presenting evidence.
Beijing’s congratulations went to an incoming government that built its campaign around Washington rather than China.
De la Espriella ran on a security alliance with the US and Israel and won an endorsement from US President Donald Trump. He promised to revive Plan Colombia, the US-funded military and counter-narcotics programme that anchored the alliance from 2000.


His election is likely to sharply differ from the current administration, which over four years swung Colombia’s foreign policy towards China.
Under Petro, Colombia signed a Belt and Road Initiative cooperation plan in May last year, the first time Bogota committed to China’s infrastructure and trade programme, after the relationship was raised to a strategic partnership in 2023.
The foreign ministry in Bogota called the accession “a historic step”, yet stressed the plan was not a treaty and created no binding obligations.
The turn towards Beijing also came as relations with Washington deteriorated. Relations between Petro and Trump worsened within days of Trump’s return to office, when the Colombian leader refused US military aircraft carrying deported migrants in January last year.
Trump threatened tariffs of 25 per cent, rising to 50 per cent, plus visa sanctions, and Petro ordered reciprocal tariffs before backing down hours later. The clashes continued through the year over trade, drug policy and Gaza, which Petro repeatedly tied to his outreach to Beijing.
Petro pushed the relationship faster than his own diplomats would go, and in September ordered the removal of staff at Colombia’s embassy in Beijing, accusing them of sabotaging relations with China.
“There is a foreign ministry here that feels ashamed of engaging with China and sabotages relations. All those people have to go,” he told ministers, saying the diplomats had altered his schedule and cancelled meetings without authorisation during his spring visit. He called the resistance colonialism.
De la Espriella inherits all of it when he takes office on August 7, having said almost nothing about China during the campaign.
He set out no position on Chinese trade or investment, the issue was largely absent from his programme and his main interviews, and his foreign policy pointed only towards an automatic alliance with Washington. He has backed Trump’s regional security agenda, of which reducing China’s footprint in Latin America is a central aim.
De la Espriella’s own law firm has been on the other side of a case against one of those Chinese builders.
Called De La Espriella Lawyers, the firm represented a Colombian subcontractor in a payment dispute with the consortium building the first line of the Bogota metro, the largest infrastructure project in the country. The 24 kilometres (14.9 miles) line is being built under a contract worth US$4.3 billion by a group led by China Harbour Engineering Company and Xian Rail Transit Group.
The Chinese consortium Metro Linea 1 had hired a local contractor, Consorcio Proyecto Metro, to clear water, power and telecoms lines from the metro’s path. De la Espriella’s firm went public in December 2024, accusing the consortium of breaches and unpaid bills more than 150 days overdue.
Metro Linea 1 denied the claims, saying it had paid on time and had already removed the contractor over delays that threatened the schedule. The case went to arbitration at the Bogota chamber of commerce, where Consorcio Proyecto Metro sought about US$2.4 million in damages.
The first line is already more than three-quarters complete and a tender for a second line collapsed in January after its bidders pulled out – including a Chinese group that cited currency risk.
Bogota has relaunched the process, with the contract due to be awarded in January 2027, during de la Espriella’s term.


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Beijing offers to work with de la Espriella in spite of his firm’s legal clash over the metro with a Chinese group and his US realignment vow


Beijing offers to work with de la Espriella in spite of his firm’s legal clash over the metro with a Chinese group and his US realignment vow.


China signals openness to Colombia’s Trump-backed president-elect despite US tilt

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Beijing offers to work with de la Espriella in spite of his firm’s legal clash over the metro with a Chinese group and his US realignment vow

Beijing offers to work with de la Espriella in spite of his firm’s legal clash over the metro with a Chinese group and his US realignment vow