S.T. JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC—The Antigua and Barbuda government has brushed aside a report by a U.S. publication that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country had become China’s “front yard,” with Beijing able to exert undue influence on the Gaston Browne administration.
In its article, Newsweek Magazine said its investigation highlighted China’s increasing involvement on the island through diplomacy and state-owned companies, the signing of a private company deal in January for a new Chinese “Special Economic Zone,” and agreements that, among other things would encourage Antiguan officials to study the thoughts of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
In the April 19 edition, the U.S. publication said it had reviewed documents showing that the zone would have its own customs and immigration formalities, a shipping port, and a dedicated airline, and it would be able to issue passports.
“It will establish businesses offering everything from logistics to cryptocurrencies, facial surgery to “virology.
“China, its state-owned companies, and aligned private businesses are expanding rapidly in the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda and other Caribbean countries in this strategic region long known as “America’s third border,” according to a Newsweek investigation of government and corporate documents as well as interviews with Antiguan leaders,” the publication added.
But Prime Minister Gaston Browne, in rubbishing the claim, said, “This cold war rhetoric going back to the relationship between the USSR and the USA, they are now trying to create and trying to use this sensational speculation that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is now trying to use Antigua and Barbuda as a base… Listen to Audio
‘This is utter nonsense,”‘ Browne said, insisting, “We will never enter into any arrangement with any country to hurt another. There is much less to break a country like the United States, in which we depend on tourism, trade, and investment.
“It will be like hurting ourselves. So protecting the U.S. is protecting our national interest, Browne added.
Meanwhile, in a letter to Newsweek Magazine, Ambassador Lionel Max Hurst, the Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister, said that the U.S. publication’s article regarding China’s relationship with St. John’s “seems to reflect the thinking of a bygone age.
“Antigua and Barbuda is a modern country barely forty years old, independent, and sovereign. China has a civilization that reaches back five thousand years. Antigua and Barbuda continues to seek friends among all the world’s nations and rejects the notion that it is in any country’s “backyard.”
In his April 19 letter, Max Hurst said that China has proven to be a reliable developmental partner and “a good friend to many small and large states around the globe.”
He said that the rivalry between China and the United States should not be deemed a replay of Cold War practices and that St. John’s “is also a great friend of the United States.
“SouthCom trains our soldiers, the U.S. Coast Guard and other branches of the U.S. military bolster our security, and the United States is our number one trading partner,” Max Hurst wrote, adding, “This journalistic tendency to harp backward on a Cold War paradigm is hurtful to the people of Antigua and Barbuda, as we turn to make friends that will respond to the needs of a small island-state like ours.”
Max Hurst recalled when the United States “was exceedingly generous and helpful in engineering a sustainable future for its friendly neighbors in the Caribbean; its diplomats complain bitterly and publicly that the U.S. Congress deprives the State Department of the resources needed to continue winning friends and influence leaders.
” We reject entirely 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. We hope that your readers will not be afflicted with the same harmful disease that plagued US/USSR relations and citizens of both States before 1989.”
Max Hurst told the U.S. publication, “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.”
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