The big news earlier this month was that Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings sold its Panama Canal port management interests to BlackRock, Inc. Hutchison, BlackRock, Panama, end of story. So the reporting went, colored a little by President Trump’s Panama statements.
There’s more
The full story is much bigger than that. For CK Hutchison Holdings sold almost all of its worldwide port operations businesses to BlackRock: 43 ports in 23 countries out of its total 52 ports in 27 countries. This global rollback of Chinese influence escaped the writers of what seemed to be predominantly a business story.
For so many ports to have passed from nominal Chinese control to nominal U.S. control suggests that worldwide port management may not be an element of the communist grand strategy. But the numbers are incomplete.
As of last month, before the sale to BlackRock, various Chinese interests, including Hutchison, owned or supervised “at least one terminal in 96 ports in 53 countries.” So it appears that even with the CK Hutchison divestiture, we have 26 countries to go before fully excluding communist interests.
Nevertheless, Beijing may have a more focused strategy. Such a focus may include Caribbean control.
In May 2024, Newsweek noted that “U.S. Lawmakers Urge Action Over China in the Caribbean: ‘Alarm Bells.’ ” What rang bells on Capitol Hill was “the signing of a private deal in January for a new Chinese ‘Special Economic Zone’ with exceptional privileges, a new airline to serve the zone, and a clutch of new agreements including one for Antiguan officials to study Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s thoughts on governance and another for China to help rebuild Antigua’s water piping system.”
And more
This concern seems narrow. More serious than Antiguan officials studying Xi Jinping Thought are the non-port military and intelligence developments in the region.
Who knew, for example, that there exists a China–Latin America High-Level Defense Forum? That “Chinese military leaders visited with their counterparts in Latin America 215 times between 2002 and 2019,” with visits continuing today? That “PLA troops deployed for eight years to Haiti under the United Nations peace keeping mission”?
“China’s military agenda in the Caribbean region includes the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which has donated Chinese Y-12 transport aircraft to Guyana. PLA military aid continues to arrive in Jamaica. Chinese-produced motorcycles have been exported to West Indian police forces in Trinidad and Tobago, and police cars to Guyana. Moreover, selected military officers from virtually every Caribbean country continue to receive training at Chinese military academies.”
What are they up to? “China’s ultimate objective of its Caribbean strategy may well be to confront the US, not only with its presence near the mainland US, but also with a situation analogous to America’s military presence in the region of the South China Sea.”
Caribbean rim
Thus, “China Could Build an ‘Island Chain’ Around America.” In February 2025, “Admiral Alvin Holsey, who oversees the U.S. Southern Command, submitted written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee warning that China may seek out military redoubts around the Caribbean rim.”
The larger the Chinese threat in the Caribbean, the more U.S. forces, including its navy, will be required nearer home and away from the South China Sea.
At this time, China already has what may be two full allies in the Caribbean: Cuba and Venezuela.
CNN reported in 2023 that “China has long had a ‘presence’ in Cuba…. The Chinese military and intelligence sites monitor maritime traffic, the US Guantanamo naval base and communications, the source familiar with the intelligence said.” In December 2024, “The Center for Strategic and International Studies analyzed nearly a dozen ‘sites of interest’ in Cuba and last week released a report highlighting the four locations it deems most likely to be supporting China’s intelligence operations.”
Meanwhile, says The Diplomat, China is a “Silent Ally Protecting Venezuela’s Maduro.” “The unconditional political, diplomatic and economic support offered by Beijing has been key to keeping the Bolivarian regime in power, from Chavez to Maduro.”
Note also that “China Cements Ties with Venezuela through Arms Sales.” In 2019, it was reported that 120 Chinese military personnel “arrived on the Margarita Island in the Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan mainland.”
The source
There does not seem to be much that can be done about Cuba or Venezuela short of ultimatums, sanctions, or aggressively undermining their international relations generally. As for the rest of the Caribbean, it will take more buyouts, more foreign aid, more diplomacy, and maybe even some threats to stop what is happening.
Or the U.S. could confront the problem at its source: the People’s Republic of China. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
Also see:
U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services: Statement of Admiral Alvin Holsey (February 13, 2025)
“Over the course of the last decade, the United States has focused predominantly on the Indo-Pacific, while the China has taken a global approach…. China is assailing U.S. interests from all directions, in all domains, and increasingly in the Caribbean archipelago—a potential offensive island chain.”
