China has, over several decades, been ceaseless in its quest to strengthen relations with the Caribbean. Its various diplomatic missions scattered across the region and its timely ‘pitching in’ with projects, seemingly designed to boost the economies of the respective countries, as much as to burnish its image in the region, reflects a mindfulness of the geopolitical importance of making its own presence felt in a region widely perceived as being part of the West’s backyard.
A key element of the country’s global diplomatic strategy is its proclivity for bearing gifts. Described as “a new economic generator”, the China-funded Phoenix Park Industrial Estate in Port-of-Spain has been hailed by Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, as representing a “critical economic infrastructure for people and business in Trinidad and Tobago,” a comment that will no doubt secure approval in Beijing, where one of that political administration’s most enduring ambitions is to have its trumpet blown globally, at least as loudly as that of the United States, if not, in some instances, louder.