Jamaica-China Partnership: Multipolar Dossier On Destabilizing The Monroe Doctrine
The article intends to show real-life Jamaican examples of what Caribbean and Latin American nations can expect from doing business with China along with its BRI to destabilize the Monroe Doctrine.
The emergence of a multipolar renaissance has been a deeply strategic and geoeconomic phenomenon brought about by key civilization-states such as China, India, and Russia and are reshaping the global power structure and forging a new phase in this global systemic transition, even in the Caribbean.
Through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has actively extended its economic global partnerships which are bilateral. The BRI was launched in 2013 and has managed to establish a global trade zone stretching from China to Europe, linked by an extensive network of road, rail, and other critical infrastructure hubs that expand well into Latin America and the Caribbean. As of mid-2019, 18 countries in the Americas, including 10 in the Caribbean, had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China under the initiative. For any given nation-state to do business with China as a partner they merely must accept the reality that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a province of it. Thus unlocking an array of possibilities hitherto unavailable for such a nation.
Jamaica became the first state in the Caribbean to become a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative back in 2019. The article will delineate a short chronology of sorts of the Jamaica-Chinese relationship since 2010, how it came about, how it's evolved thus far, how it has grown, delving into the shortcomings some of the projects have faced. The article intends to show real-life Jamaican examples of what Caribbean and Latin American nations can expect from doing business with China along with its BRI global praxis.
China offers joint mutually beneficial enterprises to global south nations to expand its vast network of multipolar globalization and also so liberate markets from oppressive political tyranny as is the case in the Caribbean under the US Monroe Doctrine, which means both parties are solely responsible for the capital, the logistics, the execution and the maintenance of operations. While these are all primordial factors from a business perspective they are not self-evident and must, of course, be worked out by all parties involved like any other business. It is this treatment as an equal, this put into the praxis of global south sovereignty which really makes the joint efforts work coherently to tackle all the problems inherent in a neo-colonized region such as the Caribbean and that China under BRI offers to reduce significantly. China, Russia, and India offer the Caribbean the capacity to do business on an equal footing, nothing more, nothing less. What does this mean exactly? Well that these multipolar giants will not as of yet use military, black operations, lawfare, economic sabotage, or economic/political sanctions to control the Caribbean's states' decisions and sovereignty.
That being said, what these nation-civilizations such as China do not offer is a free lunch. Of course, China will lend a hand to Jamaica with no strings attached if the need arises, as when it comes to specialized aid China has ample capacities it can deliver to the island nation but those are mainly humanitarian programs which are not the same as doing business, these two aspects can certainly coexist when China deals with a particular nation but for the sake of understanding Chinese activity on one of its associate's territories its easier to divide the business from the humanitarian aid which is often entangled on western media for info-war purposes against anything multipolar.
The info-war that is ever present in the New Cold War is crafted in unison by the Golden Billions US-led western vassals, making believe that Jamaica is walking into a debt trap by establishing ties with China, of course, it is their prerogative to paint a bleak picture of the relationship. Though, indeed, China does not come as a savior but rather as a reliable partner which is better. The global south states' negotiating parties dealing with any BRICS nation should be prepared to take part in class A business, and in negotiations with all the persuasion, legal manipulation, and hustling that is inherent in any business activity and/or partnership, especially if it's related to infrastructure, agriculture, extraction, or any means of production.
Where China shines is as a reliable partner capable of balancing the US which is Jamaica's main trading partner, and also Canada and the UK which have been historically the second biggest trading partners. Even though Jamaica officially entered into the BRI partnership in 2019, which offers an array of projects and investments in its own right, the relationship between the Caribbean island and China had become close years prior. And given the situation of neocolonialism and economic sabotage brought about by the Golden Billion regulated Monroe Doctrine, Jamaica opted to negotiate further with China in 2009-10 as a new partner to break the neocolonial mold and it seems to have worked.
Under concessional loan arrangements, Chinese companies have built the Montego Bay Convention Centre, rehabilitation of the Kingston Palisadoes Highway put in motion in 2010, Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium, as well as projects under the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP). Around that time, a Chinese language and culture learning center called the Confucius Institute was constructed at a cost of US $5 million with cooperation between the Governments of China and Jamaica, and the Qingjian Group. The implementation of a visa waiver policy in 2014 for Chinese citizens was a simple yet quite effective way to increase the number of tourists visiting the Caribbean island tourist centers bringing about a multiplication in the business brought about, this element alone has a significant attraction for all nations islands of the region. In the past decade, a good number of projects have been or are being implemented under Chinese government grants, among them the construction of a Chinese Garden at Hope Gardens opened in 2015.
In 2010, the China National Complete Plant Import & Export Corporation (COMPLANT) signed a US $9 million agreement for the purchase of three Jamaican sugar estates in Frome, Bernard Lodge, and Monymusk, and has so far invested hundreds of millions for the renovation of the facilities. This purchase by the Chinese company COMPLANT of the sugar estates was part of the Jamaican government's divestment, which allowed the company to establish itself as an important investor in the island nation. This project has not reached its full potential as other projects have, for the Jamaican sugar industry was already waning by 2010 and the Chinese have not been able to turn the dying sector around. Nonetheless, the Chinese willingness to take risks and to work with the Jamaican government and private sector is a positive sign, as the island's sugar sector has seen hundreds of millions in investments to update its production capacities.
Because of the financial challenges that Jamaica faces, Chinese companies have made major investments in the form of build-operate-transfer. In 2012, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) invested US$730 million in the construction of the 66-kilometer North-South leg of Highway 2000, which is the single largest investment on the island. The construction of a Chinese-built toll road finished in 2016 and has been opened on the island country of Jamaica since. The project is one among a series of many that mark the largest Chinese investment to date in the region as the Caribbean country's mountainous topography had made travel arduous and extended, hurting the tourism sector. The new toll road directly connects the Jamaican capital of Kingston in the south with a resort beach city of Ocho Rios in the north, once a three-hour drive reduced to less than half thanks to a $730 million project with funding coming from China.
When Jamaica was unable to pay for the loans it decided to give the China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC), which built the highway, a 50-year concession to recover its costs; it also gave it land alongside the highway to develop for commercial and residential use. The North-South Highway is only one example of the mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Jamaica. It has greatly reduced travel time between Kingston in the south and Ocho Rios in the north side and enhanced commercial and job possibilities to towns along the highway, greatly revitalizing the economy. In 2019 another project was set in the agenda to commence an additional China-funded US$348 million South-East coastal highway project.
Another joint business project lies in China's acquisition of the Alpart Alumina Plant in Nain, St. Elizabeth this was done specifically by the Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company (JISCO) which invested over US$360 million in 2017 in Alpart and which continually has been upgrading and expanding the facilities further to enhance its extractivist activities which increased the dynamic trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.
The total volume of China-Jamaica trade fluctuates around half a billion US dollars a year. As China is ever looking for resources being a producer powerhouse, thus it acquires from Jamaica great quantities of Aluminium Ore, Aluminium Oxide, Scrap Iron, Scrap Plastics, Coffee, and Crustaceans delicacies, whole Jamaica is interested in receiving mass produces products it can get from air conditioners to rubber tires, to cleaning products, all sorts of electronics as well.