The growing presence in Latin America of Chinese companies, private and state-owned, impacts on China’s international image globally, for in spite of the growing diversity of actors involved, the Western public, their media and governments, tend to conceive of China as a unified actor. Indeed this is a perception encouraged by Beijing’s leaders when they tour the region. This article sheds some light on the attempts at presenting a unified foreign policy of the PRC and the often divergent aspects of the country’s foreign relations with the countries of the region. It explores the implications of this umbrella approach, its incongruences and potential pitfalls. Adopting a comparative approach to examining patterns and implications in China’s relations with Latin America, and looking at Beijing’s overall foreign policy approach and its evolving relationship with the Latin American region, the paper points to numerous aspects of the transpacific relationship that need to be better understood.