On the scale of China, they are only confetti, but they are the object of all desires. In the Caribbean, a strategic region not far from the United States, Beijing is advancing its pawns and gradually establishing itself as a new heavyweight. To the point of beginning to arouse the concerns of the American neighbor. “We need to pay more attention to this region,” General Laura Richardson, head of the United States Southern Command, warned Congress last March. “Proximity matters. They are on our country’s 20-yard line,” continued the senior officer, warning against Beijing’s entrenchment in the area.
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The region has what it takes to sharpen the interest of the Chinese regime. Of the thirteen countries still diplomatically recognizing Taiwan, seven are in the Caribbean or Latin America (Belize, Haiti, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Guatemala and Paraguay) . “The suppression of Taiwan’s diplomatic space is one of the cards used by Beijing for its reunification project, points out Mathieu Duchâtel, director of international studies at the Institut Montaigne. In this context, one of the objectives of the China is to reduce one by one the list of countries that have diplomatic relations with Taipei.”
Examples abound. In 2018, the Dominican Republic ended its diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of Beijing, in the name of respecting the principle of “one China”, imposed by the Chinese regime on any state establishing official ties with it. In the process, the Caribbean island won an envelope of 3.1 billion dollars in the form of loans and investments for development projects. She is not the only one to have yielded to Beijing’s advances in recent years, which Taipei denounces as “checkbook diplomacy”. Since 2017, four other countries in the region have done the same – Panama (2017), El Salvador (2018), Nicaragua (2021) and Honduras (2023).
Allies at the UN
The Chinese offensive is not limited to the promise of juicy investments. Thus the flourishing of many Confucius institutes in the region – establishments designed by Beijing as tools for soft-power to spread Chinese culture abroad. In total, 23 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America have such institutes, including Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Barbados. The field of security is not left out, with regular donations by China of police cars, bulletproof vests and other equipment to various States in the region, such as Guyana (2017), Trinidad and Tobago (2019) or Nicaragua (2022). In its 2022-2024 joint action plan for Latin America and the Caribbean, Beijing also reaffirms its intention to strengthen ties in other “key areas” ranging from “political cooperation” to “the economy”, through “international affairs”.
With this in mind, Beijing has not hesitated to dispatch high-level officials to the area in recent years, as evidenced by Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s visit to Cuba at the end of 2022 or, more recently, the dispatch of the government’s special representative Qiu Xiaoqi for the 179th anniversary of the independence of the Dominican Republic, in March 2023. “Beyond the question of Taiwan, the Caribbean arouses the interest of Beijing because at the UN, every voice counts to prevent the adoption of resolutions that are critical in the eyes of China,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, researcher at the Asia Center in Paris.
In 2020, during a vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council against its controversial law on national security in Hong Kong, the Chinese regime was thus able to count on the support of 53 countries (27 against) including Cuba. , Antigua and Barbuda or Suriname. This rise of Beijing in the Caribbean also reflects another geopolitical reality. “China is taking advantage of the lack of interest of the United States for the countries of the region”, points out Jean-Pierre Cabestan. This is evidenced by the absence of an American ambassador to the Bahamas since 2011, the position being occupied only by “charges d’affaires” appointed on an interim basis. Although Joe Biden attempted to name a suitor in May 2022, his confirmation by the US Senate went unheeded. Quite a symbol.