The real reason Obama went to Jamaica?...

[HipChick]

China is slowly funding and taking over
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-obama-went-jamaica

The New York Times published a piece exactly three years ago this week about international affairs that continues to be of great interest.

A brand new $35 million stadium opened in the Bahamas a few weeks ago, a gift from the Chinese government.

The tiny island nation of Dominica has received a grammar school, a renovated hospital and a sports stadium, also courtesy of the Chinese. Antigua and Barbuda got a power plant and a cricket stadium, and a new school is on its way. The prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago can thank Chinese contractors for the craftsmanship in her official residence.

China’s economic might has rolled up to America’s doorstep in the Caribbean, with a flurry of loans from state banks, investments by companies and outright gifts from the government in the form of new stadiums, roads, official buildings, ports and resorts in a region where the United States has long been a prime benefactor.

And this most definitely includes Jamaica, where a Chinese company has invested heavily in sugar estates, and where the Chinese government has loaned Jamaica several hundred million dollars in loans for infrastructure.

it’s clear that China sees itself as a 21st-century power, and it’s eager to make inroads just about everywhere, including the Caribbean.

This is a part of American foreign policy that isn’t often discussed, which Republicans tend to ignore, and which the White House cares deeply about in a very quiet way. Indeed, this came up in January, when Obama made a high-profile return visit to India, which has long been friendly with Russia, but which is now looking for a new friendly superpower to hang out with. As Politico noted at the time, Obama would like the United States, not China, to be that friend: “As part of that strategy and [in] an effort to counterbalance China, Obama has looked to bolster India – which is on course to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation – to make sure China has a strong rival in the region.”

I suspect the U.S. president was thinking along similar lines when he agreed to visit Jamaica. The Caribbean has a new suitor, and the White House very likely wants to remind Jamaicans and others of the United States’ longstanding ties to the region.
More from the Times’ piece in 2012:

Several analysts in the Caribbean say they believe that China eventually will emerge as a political force in the region, with so many countries indebted to it, at a time when the United States is perceived as preoccupied with the Middle East and paying little attention to the region.

“They are buying loyalty and taking up the vacuum left by the United States, Canada and other countries, particularly in infrastructure improvements,” said Sir Ronald Sanders, a former diplomat from Antigua and Barbuda.

“If China continues to invest the way it is doing in the Caribbean, the U.S. is almost making itself irrelevant to the region,” he added. “You don’t leave your flank exposed.”

[TDale313]

1. Why worry about them setting up camp on our front porch...

When we've already sold them them the house and hope we can still rent a room from them?

It's a good article, and does make some good points.

[BrotherIvan]

2. Wow, you get it

When we've already sold them them the house and hope we can still rent a room from them?

The Chinese control the emerging solar market because the US system of maximum profit was not willing to invest in it. China is buying up huge tracts of land in South America and Africa for farming and factories. China will be the #1 force in the world because they didn't blow everything they had on stupid fucking wars.

But India will not be their ally any time soon. So at least we have that.

[AngryDem001]

3. "They didn't blow everything they had on stupid fucking wars."

Ain't that the truth.

[JDPriestly]

4. China is a huge country with a balance of trade surplus which is in great part due to the fact

that we buy so much from it. That includes our solar panels and the clothes that most Americans wear. We have only ourselves to blame/thank for the rise of China's economic power.

The Chinese are smart. They sell and give away infrastructure (which they are very good at producing in their own country) rather than a lot of arms. We produce weapons of destruction and sell them to other countries. We make a lot of friends in high places that way, but we don't make friends among the people because our arms are used to control the peopl and establish authoritarian regimes in other countries.

And by the way, we have lots of Chinese investment right here in America.

But then, China is a huge country, much larger than America, and it has a very large trade surplus while we have a large trade deficit. We are not going to be able to keep China from increasing its influence in the world by sending our president as an ambassador to our neighbors. We have to change the way we behave in the world.

[appalachiablue]

5. Great article & posts. A real eye opener. Globalization is running the world,

aka The Rape of the World, 2.0. Picking up from 500 years of European Colonialism that dominated the world. Things should be interesting throughout the 21st century.