Dancing with China

SO FAR, discussions on the visit to Jamaica on Saturday by the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, have been mostly low-keyed – anodyne almost. Which misses its potential significance.

Mr Wang’s stop in Jamaica, after a visit to Brazil, is likely a signal of Beijing reigniting its diplomatic foray into the hemisphere after a few years of seeming caution. The reset, if that is what it is, is opportune for Jamaica and the administration of Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

In the aftermath of the island’s cringe-worthy, and still unsatisfactorily explained, faux pas over the first General Assembly vote on a Gaza ceasefire, the Jamaican Government has an opportunity to reassert a sense of independence in its foreign policy and broader geopolitical issues, the prism through which Mr Wang’s dash through the hemisphere will be seen in Washington.

But apart from rescuing his image, Mr Holness will also probably hope that China still retains an appetite, and the wherewithal, to lend to developing countries, and that Mr Wang’s discussions in Kingston will provide the diplomatic/political underpinnings for a new round of low-interest financial flows.

Jamaica was among the more significant of this region’s beneficiaries of China’s economic and political rise and its accelerated efforts in the 2000s to expand its footprint in Latin America and the Caribbean. For instance, Beijing’s state-owned global construction firm, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), invested over US$750 million on a tolled highway between the island’s north and south coasts, while another Chinese invested in sugar and alumina, mostly with unhappy returns. At the same time, China’s Export-Import Bank has loaned heavily to Jamaica for infrastructure, especially roads, built by CHEC.

NEW AVENUES

It had seemed, though, that Beijing’s appetite for an expanded footprint in the hemisphere was off the boil, tempered by America’s aggressive pushback. Joe Biden has continued, and expanded, Donald Trump’s efforts to contain China’s technological and economic advance and geopolitical rise. The Americans have also openly urged developing countries, including Jamaica, to be wary of Chinese loans, claiming that they were entering debt traps

Any caution by Beijing against plunging into business ventures in the Caribbean would also have been influenced by the outcomes of some of its previous ventures – not only in Jamaica. In The Bahamas, Ex-Im Bank loaned US$2.45 billion to a mega hotel project in which China State Construction Engineering Corporation, a builder, invested US$150 million.

The project went bankrupt. Nonetheless, Kingston will hope that despite China’s economic slowdown, any funk towards investing in the small countries of this region is receding.

In that respect, Jamaica’s Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith’s framing of Mr Wang’s visit perhaps hints at part of Kingston’s wishes.

“The visit to Jamaica not only represents a recognition of our countries’ strong diplomatic relations, but also an opportunity to explore new avenues for cooperation in various fields, including trade, investment, infrastructure and cultural exchange,” she said.

Beijing has largely framed the visit in its political context.

At a recent briefing, the foreign ministry’s spokesperson, Mao Ning, said: “Brazil and Jamaica are China’s important cooperation partners in Latin America and the Caribbean. We enjoy a deep, traditional friendship and engage in fruitful cooperation in trade, people-to-people exchanges and other fields. We share identical or similar positions on many regional and international issues.”

Indeed, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has reversed his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro’s lurch to the right.

NON-ALIGNED FOREIGN POLICY

Part of Mr Holness’aim in that context would be to stake out a position that asserts an independent, nonaligned foreign policy for Jamaica, without angering the US, a close and important neighbour with which Jamaica has strong ties. And in doing so, he will hope to win back some of the ground Jamaica has lost to Barbados as the English-speaking Caribbean’s political leader.

There was a signal in the prime minister’s approach to Jamaica-China relations in September, at the opening of the new leg of the East-West Highway, when he pushed back against suggestions that the island was too deep in the financial hock to China.

In a message clearly aimed at Washington, he said that what the island owed to China was merely 4.5 per cent of its overall debt of more than US$8 billion.

“Unlike those who would want to create a false impression about Jamaica and our international development relationship with China – it is false,” Mr Holness said. “Jamaica has taken a strategic approach to develop its infrastructure and we partner with those who want to help us, and we are willing to partner with all countries in the world that come genuinely to assist our development.”

Against this backdrop, Mr Holness will, among other things, probably argue for CHEC to proceed with the promised housing and other developments along its highway, aimed at creating traffic for the road.

CHEC was awarded 200 acres of land in support of that scheme. While it still has several years before it would have to give back the property, there is no sign of an intention to proceed with the developments. Perhaps Mr Wang’s visit will be the catalyst for action.