The Chinese regime lands in the Caribbean with its old formula: trap loans and strategic “investments”

For years China has the look and the feet America Latina Y Caribe under the pretext of helping all these countries eager to receive it. According to an extensive article in the North American newspaper The New York Times.

The regime of Beijing has quietly carried out a far-reaching plan across the region, but especially in the Caribbean islands, where it has greatly expanded trade, doing government “bailouts”, building huge and deficient infrastructure projects, strengthening military ties and acquiring huge amounts of natural resources.

The pandemic served him to present himself as the great savior and wash away his negative image for being the country where the coronavirus originated and whose management of the epidemic in Wuhan it was deficient and allowed it to spread across the planet. Thus was born the call “disguise diplomacy“Shipments of questionable medical equipment to fight the COVID-19 they both arrived this spring Port au Prince, Haiti, like all America Latina.

But nothing is free.

This global campaign allowed Xi Jinping – The all-powerful Chinese head of state – strengthens ties with foreign countries through such donations. 45% of the masks or chin straps distributed in the world were produced in China. Beijing it went even further and pledged in July to provide $ 1 billion loans bring their own vaccines to the countries of the region, remaining as the great benefactor. Curious curve of fate. Again: nothing is free.

Although Caribbean markets are not economically important because they are small and do not have vital primary resources, The area is strategically important as a logistics, banking and commercial hub, and more importantly, it could be of great value in a military conflict due to its proximity to the United States..

But another crucial motivation for the Caribbean strategy of China it is overcoming the nations and putting them on their side when it comes TaiwanAn independent island that the regime intends to annex and whose tension is at its peak. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and has long sought to reduce the number of countries that recognize it as an independent nation. He does it with money. However, recently, the international prestige of the Taipei government has grown as it fought the coronavirus pandemic with great success, even before it was declared as such. Decades of knowing how the regime handled its mistakes were enough for island democracy to prevent disease.

China, through its low-interest loans, provides seemingly much-needed aid to all of these nations that have serious infrastructure needs but whose status as middle-income countries complicates their access to development finance.

Second Inter-American dialogue, an international research organization, the Chinese regime has funded infrastructure projects in Caribbean nations for over $ 6 billion over the past 15 years. In Latin America, Venezuela was the country that benefited the most from receiving the substantial sum of 58 billion dollars from the Chinese government in exchange for the long-term supply of oil, mortgaging its future and that of future governments.

Chinese companies have spent millions on ports and shipping logistics, mining and oil companies, sugar and timber industries, resorts and technology projects. Between 2002 and 2019, exchanges between China and the Caribe multiplied by eight seconds The New York Times.

One of the most benefited countries among the Caribbean nations is Jamaica. Beijing it donated security equipment to the military and police and built a network of cultural centers throughout the Caribbean to spread its propaganda. It has also carried out large shipments of test kits, masks and ventilators to help governments respond to the pandemic. Again: its quality was not the best.

Both files Union European such as state United They look at this advance of the Asian giant with mistrust in nations with constant economic crises: they fear that it will end up with strategic areas in the event that a country cannot pay its debt. This scenario has already happened in Sri Lanka in 2018 when, unable to honor its debt, it had to relinquish control of one of its main ports in Beijing..

The Dialogue Inter-American, which closely follows Chinese government funding in the region, reported that over the past 15 years, Beijing has lent Jamaica about $ 2.1 billion to build roads, bridges, a convention center and housing. Mystery surrounds the question: how will the island return it?

But not only their presence stops there. Companies that respond to the CCP have been left with key industries and sectors of the small country such as sugar mining and production, where they have already made their way with succulent investment projects.

While the government of Jamaica announced a year ago that it would stop negotiating new loans as part of an effort to reduce its debt, it said it would continue to cooperate with the Chinese government on major infrastructure projects through joint ventures and public partnerships. private. among other agreements.

China has also expanded its influence in the Caribbean through security cooperation, including donating equipment to military and police forces and cultural awareness programs, such as expanding the Confucius Institutes which have begun to close in various parts of the world as possible centers of espionage and dissemination of the CCP’s propaganda.

Now, Jamaica finds itself in the dilemma to which all that money flow has pushed it: joining the 5G network of Huawei or ZTE, despite the history of espionage and technology theft reports that weighs on these parastatal companies.

The Chinese presence, despite the promises of capital flows, does not generate direct benefits for the population either. They even generate employment in their large infrastructure projects: is that the regime fears that Chinese work is leading the projects.

Xi JinpingThrough its diplomatic channels, it rejects this accusation as false and claims that the country is only trying to help.

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