For the inauguration of its new headquarters in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, last October, the Chinese group Huawei was able to count on a distinguished guest. Prime Minister Andrew Holness came in person to salute the desire of the telecom giant to “root firmly” in the country and to participate in its “digitization”. The Jamaican authorities have reason to pamper China: it has invested more than three billion dollars in the island over the past fifteen years, allowing it to build highways and modernize its container port.
EPISODE 1 – Cuba: Havana, nest of Chinese spies
EPISODE 2 – Caribbean: a stone’s throw from the United States, China’s diplomatic offensive
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Twenty years ago, China’s presence in the Caribbean was limited to a few embassies. From now on, it is considered a major economic partner there – 8 billion dollars in trade in 2019, against a billion in 2002, even though the region happens to be the backyard of the United States, its main rival. . It has thus invested more than 10 billion dollars between 2005 and 2022.building a deep-water port and new hotel complexes in the Bahamas, a major hospital in Dominica and even sports arenas in Barbados, also taking stakes in various energy and oil activities.
“His investments are all the more welcome as they help to stimulate local economies in difficulty”, explains Annita Montoute, professor at the University of the West Indies of Trinidad and Tobago. A dozen countries in the area have joined the new Silk Roads, a huge infrastructure construction project led by Beijing. As a reward, new members can access funding without stringent conditions. The Trinidadian government thus opted for a Chinese loan of 1.4 billion dollars rather than accepting funds from an IMF demanding, in exchange, an austerity policy.
A war of influence
If these sums are considerable for the confetti of the Caribbean – and risk of posing big problems of reimbursement -, they represent only a fraction of the budgets available to Chinese behemoths, which occupy a void left by the American big brother. The end of the Cold War and the competing Soviet regime led to a certain lack of interest from Washington for the development of the region, of which the island of Puerto Rico – in endless recession, despite its membership of the United States – is the symbol . “We are being neglected by world leaders,” complains Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis.
Worried about this rise in Chinese power, the White House has been trying to respond to it since the arrival of Joe Biden. But without putting the means: Vice-President Kamala Harris announced barely 100 million dollars to deploy renewable energies, during a summit with the 15 members of the Caribbean Community, at the beginning of June. “The United States has become aware that the developing world is at the heart of China’s global strategy, but they are more in the reaction than anything else, notes Nadège Rolland, researcher at the National Bureau of Asian Research, based in Washington Opposite, the Chinese imprint goes far beyond mere commercial interest, and spreads to the cultural and diplomatic fields, to the point of spreading oil towards cooperation in the fields of security, both police and military. .”
South of the Caribbean Sea, Guyana has thus installed a surveillance system for public roads with facial recognition developed by China… with the risk that the latter will recover the data. On new technologies, the war of influence has begun: the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda has explained that he is giving up Huawei’s 5G antennas, in the face of American pressure. “There will be more and more episodes like this in the future, and it will not be to the benefit of local economies,” fears consultant Rasheed Griffith, a specialist in China-Caribbean relations. Unless it invests more, the United States could end up in the wrong role. To the great satisfaction of the Chinese.