Construction at new Beijing airport terminal.

Relations between China and Latin America continue to warm, and it’s literally being felt in the air.

Last Dec. 10, Air China inaugurated the first direct route from China to South America. The 767 jetliner leaves Beijing twice a week for Madrid, where it stops for less than two hours before continuing on to Sao Paulo, Brazil. All told, it involves about 24 hours of flying time.

Now, there’s word that Mexicana will begin regular flights between Mexico and Beijing later this year. The flights will depart from Mexico City and stop elsewhere in Mexico, probably Tijuana, to refuel before flying nonstop to China.

Mexico City is quite high at 7,400 feet above sea level, so jetliners can’t take off from there with sufficient fuel to make it to China. But Tijuana is a good fueling stopover because Mexicana can pull in more passengers from across the border in California.

Mexico definitely has an eye on China. The other big Mexican airline, AeroMexico, began direct flights between Tijuana and Tokyo, Japan, on Nov. 16. The flight, which actually begins in Mexico City, lands in Tokyo at a time when there are immediate connections onward to China, an additional 3 plus hours.   

It’s not just the air connections that are evolving. Latin countries are also opening up to China in other ways. Colombia Jan. 1 became the first Latin nation to lift all visa requirements for Chinese. Any Chinese citizen who shows up at the border gets a three-month entry. If any other country has adopted this policy, I don’t know about it.

That doesn’t yet mean much in practical terms because there are no direct China-Colombia flights. But many Chinese are turning up at the Colombian embassy in Beijing to ask about it.

Chinese citizens still need transit visas from the United States or a European country for stopovers on their way to Latin America. That, too, may change once Mexico has a direct flight to Beijing. A senior Mexican official tells me that Mexico will soon stop demanding transit visas from Chinese passing through Mexico to Latin America.

Now we just have to teach our local friends to say Viva Mexico! in Chinese. Or teach the Mexicans to hoist a Dos Equis and say Gan Bei!

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