The U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica wasted no time in warning the Costa Rican government to expect “negative repercussions” if it continued the contract for China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) to broaden and improve a key national highway connecting the country’s Central Valley with the Caribbean port of Limon, a project well underway. CHEC is a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), which was placed on the list of Chinese companies sanctioned for carrying out “malign activities” in the South China Sea, the Embassy communiqué asserted.
The CHEC is not one of the four CCCC subsidiaries placed on the Commerce Department’s “don’t do business with these entities list,” but no matter; the CCCC is the target.
“Costa Rica has experienced the CCCC’s transgressions in working with its CHEC subsidiary on the Route 32 expansion. The CCCC and its subsidiaries are a threat to the sovereignty, economic growth and environmental quality of the whole country” of Costa Rica, Ambassador Sharon Day’s statement arrogantly declared.
Costa Rica was the first country in Central America to establish diplomatic ties with China, and it officially participates in the Belt and Road project. Its previous government had been in discussions with China about extending the (now-stalled) high-speed rail project which China proposed to build and finance, going from Panama City to the Panamanian-Costa Rican border into Costa Rica, as the first step towards a Central American-wide railway into Mexico.
