Antigua denies China beachhead on island

Antiguan authorities including Prime Minister Gaston Browne have in recent days been forced to fend off claims by influential American publications that it is allowing China to build a political beachhead on the island through which it will spread its military and other forms of influence through the Eastern Caribbean.

In a recent piece, the once vaunted Newsweek publication reported that it had evidence that China was building a new outpost on the doorstep of the US, relegating Washington to the backburner and creating conditions for China to emerge as the major political player in the region.

Angered by the publication and the diplomatic fallout that it had engendered, PM Browne moved quickly to remind anyone who is paying attention to the fact that the US is a major trading partner, source of direct investment and a supplier of both stayover and cruise ship tourists.

The publication had alleged that China was building an outpost in the capital, St. John’s but officials suggested that it must have been referring to the Chinese embassy in the city. On the question of a free economic zone being established on the island, the cabinet said it is privately rather than Chinese government owned, noting that the set aside area is not near to any local military base as was suggested. The island’s parliament had debated the establishment of the zone as far back as 2015.  An angry Browne argued that the government is not politically stupid and would do nothing to hurt the country’s national interest.

“This is utter nonsense. We will never ever enter into any arrangement with any country to hurt another. Much less to hurt a country like the United States in which we are so dependent on their tourism, we are dependent on their trade and investment. It will be like hurting ourselves. So, protecting the US is protecting our own national interest,” said Browne.

Lionel Max Hurst, Browne’s chief of staff has also come out swinging.

“This seems to reflect the thinking of a by-gone age. Antigua and Barbuda is a modern country barely forty years independent and sovereign. China has a civilization that reaches back five thousand years. Antigua and Barbuda continues to seek friends among all the nations of the world and rejects the notion that it is in any country’s “backyard, “Hurst said.

“We completely reject your characterization of the friendship between Antigua and Barbuda and the People’s Republic of China as being somehow sinister and dangerous to the United States and its interests. Our hope is that your readers will not be afflicted with the same harmful disease that plagued US/USSR relations and citizens of both States prior to 1989. Our leaders are smart, have access to the same information as many of yours and certainly are more clever than the journalists who deliberately choose to mischaracterize the foreign relations of friendly states.”

Hurst said local soldiers are trained by the US military through arrangements with the Florida-based Southern Command. Browne also heaped praise on China for building a national stadium with a concession loan worth $55 million. “I don’t know why they would now want to undermine what is easily the most significant developmental relationship between Antigua and Barbuda and any other country at this time. In terms of building out our socio-economic infrastructure, there’s no other country within the last 20 years that has made a more significant contribution towards the socioeconomic development of Antigua and Barbuda than the PRC,” the PM argued.