(Re)Exploring the Great Divergence between Sino-Asia and Latin America: State, Industrialization, and Regional Integration in a Long-Term Perspective

Objective/context: The article revisits the comparative analysis of the divergent development trajectories of the Global South in an international context marked by the growing centrality of this macro-region and the intensification of its internal interconnections. It examines how state configurations interact with a strategic triangle comprising the state, industrial-technological development, and regional productive integration. The study covers three historical periods—the long Sino-Asian predominance until the mid-nineteenth century, the rise of U.S. hegemony, and the systemic crisis of the 1970s—to explain how the persistence/disruption of this triangle shaped these trajectories. Methodology: It combines a historical-structural analysis with a multiscale comparative approach to assess (a) state-building trajectories and state capacities; (b) patterns of industrial-technological upgrading; and (c) modalities of regional productive integration. The empirical evidence draws on secondary literature and historical comparisons across the mentioned three periods: (1) early state formation and commercial integration in Sino-Asia vs. postcolonial fragmentation in Latin America; (2) state-led industrialization in Asia vs. Latin American “gruyère states”; and (3) contemporary divergences in directive capacity, industrialization, and regionalism. Conclusions: The comparative analysis indicates that the Sino-Asian region articulated strong states, advanced industrialization, and functional regional integration, while preserving margins of autonomy. Latin America, by contrast, experienced disarticulation, state weakening, reprimarization, and subordinated regionalisms. Originality: The article transcends isolated national comparisons and offers a relational, systemic interpretation of regional divergence, grounded in the articulation—or rupture—of the State-industrialization-regional integration triangle, providing insights for rethinking Latin America’s insertion into the twenty-first-century global system.