“Our bilateral relationship is one of the closest in the world between a big and small country.”
“China’s contribution to global peace and prosperity … is unmatched.”
These are the servile words of Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, one of our smallest and closest neighbors in the Caribbean.
The microstate, 300 miles southeast of Puerto Rico, has the population of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in summer. It was so quiet that the United States closed its embassy in 1994.
Where Washington saw nothing, Beijing saw opportunity. China opened a five-acre embassy in 2022. It built a major maritime cargo facility and expanded Antigua’s airport runway to 10,000 feet, large enough for almost any aircraft. China is developing a massive special economic zone that occupies nearly 3% of Antigua’s territory, with CCP sovereignty guarantees on land and offshore. China is financing a 200-unit residential complex overseen by Browne’s wife, who happens to be housing minister.
“President Xi Jinping is the most impactful global leader,” Browne gushed to Chinese TV last year.
Caribbean islands have a friendly vibe, but their politics can be cutthroat. Browne is a British-educated banker who doubles as finance minister. He is bogged down in cronyism, corruption scandals, and calls for his resignation. He has criminalized politics, branding critics “bitter, embattled, miserable, disloyal traitors” out to “sell the soul” of the country and threatening them with legal action.
Browne’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and with terrorist regimes such as Venezuela and Cuba makes the Antigua leader more than a mere annoyance.
He isn’t unique. “The most jarring and overlooked illustration of the CCP’s pervasive influence and investment is mere miles off the southeast coast of the U.S. in the Caribbean islands,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford wrote in Newsweek after a recent visit to the region.
“As of 2022, 10 Caribbean countries have joined the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative,” Crawford said. “This resource-dense part of the Western Hemisphere provides several strategic benefits for Beijing and its ultimate pursuit of global dominance.”
During a January 2024 visit to Beijing, Browne praised China’s initiatives.
“By proposing the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, China has taken concrete actions to promote common development and prosperity of the world and benefit the people, showing unparalleled leadership and charisma in the world, and will surely lead more countries in the Global South to strengthen unity and cooperation,” Browne said.
Browne shares similar affections with Havana and Caracas.
“We are fully aware of the geopolitical challenges that Venezuela faces,” Browne said aboard the Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan naval training barque, just a month ago. “However, the government and people of Venezuela must be assured that Antigua and Barbuda continues to be a very liable partner and will continue to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Venezuela.”
The solidarity, of course, is with dictator Nicolas Maduro and his comrades. Aboard ship, Browne swiped at Maduro’s critics. “We will not be persuaded by the rhetoric or the misinformation and dis-information that are being used to demonize the duly elected Venezuelan government,” he said, according to the Caribbean Media Corporation’s coverage in the Gleaner of Jamaica.
He added, “We will continue to work with Venezuela, Cuba and other like-minded countries to ensure that our hemisphere remains a ‘Zone of Peace.’”
Browne didn’t post those comments on his busy Facebook pages.
This week, Browne struck a different tone hours before he and other Caribbean leaders visited Washington to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“There are lots of misconceptions about our relationship with Cuba, our relationship with China, our relationship with Venezuela,” Browne’s office posted on Facebook. “We want the Secretary to understand that Antigua’s foreign policy position is based on being a friend of all; and that we are too small to have enemies.”
TRUMP SAYS HE WON’T DROP 145% CHINA TARIFFS TO ADVANCE NEGOTIATIONS, AS REQUESTED BY BEIJING
President Donald Trump is the first to take the China threat seriously. One of his major foreign policy actions this year was to compel a Hong Kong company to sell its ports on either end of the Panama Canal. Beijing is blocking that sale. Rubio, who knows the area well, has made the Caribbean region one of his top diplomatic priorities.
Pushing the CCP out of the Caribbean will happen, either easily or painfully. Co-opted regional leaders such as Browne are likely to cause their countries considerable pain.
J. Michael Waller is senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.
