Trouble in Paradise

China's massive investment in Antigua potentially represents the greatest external challenge along America's 'third border' since the Cuban missile crisis

- DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

ON A CARIBBEAN ISLAND JUST 220 miles from the shore of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a black-clad Chinese security guard swept an arm at more than a thousand acres of woodland and a glittering, aquagreen marine reserve beyond.

"It's like a small country," he said in Chinese.

This natural paradise on the island of Antigua, where officials will study the thoughts of Xi Jinping, is about to be razed for a Chinese-run special economic zone. According to documents reviewed by Newsweek it will have its own customs and immigration formalities, a shipping port and a dedicated airline, and will 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 in 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.

China's growing regional presence is potentially the greatest external challenge to the United States in the Americas since the Soviet Union set up in Cuba in the 1960s-and the U.S. military is concerned.

"We are aware that China may use its commercial and diplomatic presence for military purposes. In Asia, Africa and the Middle East, China has already abused commercial agreements at host-country ports for military aims; our concern is they may do the same in this region," a spokesperson for the Florida-based Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, told Newsweek.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of loans and grants from China and extensive construction by Chinese state-owned companies of critical infrastructure, including ports, airports and water systems, are turning Antigua-once considered part of America's "backyard"-into China's frontyard, critics say.