China Is Flexing Its Muscle in the Caribbean, and That's a Problem for the United States

The Russo-Ukraine war is taking up a lot of bandwidth in the news cycle, and rightly so. But right here in the United States, we should remember our primary geopolitical rival, and it's not Russia - it's China.

To that end, we note on Monday that China is making some troubling moves in the Caribbean, particularly in and around the Bahamas.

"The People's Republic of China has been making diplomatic, economic and even military and quasi-military inroads into the Caribbean, South and Central America for the past couple of decades," retired Rear Adm. Peter Brown, former Homeland Security advisor to President Donald Trump, told Fox News Digital.
Brown pointed to the rise in dual-use infrastructure projects along the Bahamas coastline, which is located just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.
"It doesn't take a lot of imagination for the People's Republic of China to use its commercial footprint in the Bahamas to monitor, exploit and perhaps even do worse to [the] U.S.," he said.

Dual-use infrastructure refers to infrastructure that can be used for both civil and military applications. And the Bahamas are close neighbors; as the linked article notes, the island nation is only 50 miles from the Florida coast.

There is a very real possibility that any Chinese-operated installations in the Caribbean could be quickly converted to serve purposes like naval replenishment or basing for military aircraft. Although many of the Chinese-financed projects seem mostly commercial in nature:

China has invested heavily in the Bahamas through a range of additional high-profile projects, including a $40 million grant for a national stadium, a $3 billion mega-port in Freeport, and $40 million for the North Abaco Port and Little Abaco Bridge.
Additionally, China EXIM Bank provided over $54 million in loans to construct a four-lane highway and nearly $3 billion to finance the development of the Baha Mar Resort.

The United States Navy regularly operates in the area. The Navy operates an underwater testing range in the area, and this part of the Caribbean is in the flight path of many American space launches.

Trump Responds After WSJ Reports He's Considering Slashing Tariffs on Chinese Imports

The silver lining in all this is that the Caribbean is a long, long way from China, and as of this writing, they have no military ability to project power that far.

Still, add this to the overall picture, and it's enough to raise a few eyebrows. Chinese interests have been buying American farmland, much of it disturbingly close to key American military installations. Chinese interests were operating facilities on both sides of the Panama Canal, although that seems to be changing now. China is also dialing its air force and navy in, and along with Russia has resumed the old Cold War game of "freedom of navigation" exercises, often trailing their coats down the Alaska coast, for example. (To be fair, we are doing the same thing to them; that's how this game is played.)

And, remember, China plays the long game. They see their history in terms of thousands of years, and plan for decades ahead.

We have one great advantage, though, both geopolitically and militarily, should it come to that: Unpredictability. Much of America's geopolitical and military history can be characterized as "making it up as we go," and that's hard for the rather ossified thinking processes of totalitarian governments, like China, to deal with.

It's not clear what we can do to prevent any significant Chinese foothold in the Caribbean. The Bahamas are an independent entity, and they are free to deal with whom they please. The best thing we may be able to do is to offer them a better deal.

Every single day, here at RedState, we will stand up and FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT against the radical left and deliver the conservative reporting our readers deserve.

Help us continue to tell the truth about the Trump administration and its major wins. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.