Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held an upbeat virtual meeting yesterday with the foreign ministers of nine Caribbean nations to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic relations and discuss a range of issues on which they intend to cooperate, in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative put forward by President Xi Jinping. The participating nations included Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
Given Washington’s near-hysterical concern about Chinese involvement in the Caribbean and Ibero-America, the same day Vice President Kamala Harris met virtually with all 15 members of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), including the 9 who had met with Wang, to discuss such issues as climate change, the transition to clean energy and security—hardly an agenda for what the region needs.
