RIO DE JANEIRO -- All but invisible in Latin America a decade ago, China now is building cars in Uruguay, donating a soccer stadium to Costa Rica and lending $10 billion to Brazil's biggest oil company.

It has supplanted the United States to become the biggest trading partner with Brazil, South America's largest economy.

China has moved aggressively to fill a vacuum left by the United States in recent years, as the U.S. focused on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and struggled with the global economic crisis.

``China is rising while the U.S. is declining in Latin America,'' Riordan Roett, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University, said while visiting Sao Paulo. ``China is all over this region. They are following a state-driven policy to expand their peaceful presence.''

China is beefing up its embassies throughout Latin America, opening Confucian centers to expand Chinese culture, sending high-level trade delegations throughout the region and opening the door for ordinary Chinese to visit Machu Picchu, Rio and other tourism hot spots.

Aiping Yuan came to Rio de Janeiro from Beijing in 1997 on a lark, fell in love with the city and decided to stay. She studied Portuguese, and when Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made his first visit to China in 2004, she opened a small school in Rio to teach Mandarin.

She began with six students and today has 300, including senior executives at Petrobras, the country's biggest oil company, and Vale do Rio Doce, the biggest mineral producer. Both have growing business with China.

``Chinese is the language of the future for Brazil,'' Yuan said with a big smile.

China has forged a strategic alliance with Brazil that has allowed the two countries to partner with India and Russia in the so-called BRIC grouping, which is demanding a greater voice in global political and economic affairs. Indeed, China is making inroads with developing countries worldwide.

Beijing's main interest in Latin America has been guaranteeing access to the region's raw materials -- principally oil, iron ore, soybeans and copper -- to fuel its continued rapid growth. For many countries, there's a downside in the China trade, through which cheap imports have displaced local textiles.

China's growing role has alarmed policymakers in Washington. However, China has been careful not to establish a military presence in the region, since doing so would antagonize Washington. The United States has considered Latin America to be in its sphere of influence since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.

China treats Hugo Chávez as they do Alvaro Uribe and Lula, said Alexandre Barbosa, a consultant to the Sao Paulo-based consulting firm Prospectiva, referring to the presidents of Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil, respectively. ``They're interested in business.''

And what a voracious interest in business they've shown. Trade between Latin America and China rocketed from $10 billion in 2000 to $140 billion in 2008. China is buying zinc from Peru, copper from Chile and iron ore from Brazil. It's shipping electronic equipment to Brazil, buses to Cuba, clothes to Mexico and cars to Peru.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia is trying to position his country as a major commercial hub for China in South America. He's hoping to capitalize not only on Peru's ports in the center of South America but also on a shared history: Thousands of Chinese emigrated to Peru in the 19th and early 20th centuries to do manual labor. These immigrants have left a legacy of the so-called chifa restaurants, which offer Chinese food throughout Peru.

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