By The Belt and Road Initiative, first proposed by China in 2013, aims to enhance connectivity and cooperation among countries through infrastructure development and trade provided by the communist nation. Chinese leaders see it as a way to revive the ancient Silk Road trade routes by building roads, railways, ports, and other infrastructure across Asia, Africa, and Europe, garnering new influence for their nation.
However, the initiative has faced much criticism. Some say the Belt and Road promotes debt-trap diplomacy, as recipient countries may struggle to repay loans for infrastructure projects, leading to China gaining undue influence.
Now, under the guise of Belt and Road, China has taken over a country right on America’s doorstep, and it’s raising alarms inside the Pentagon.
This natural paradise on the island of Antigua, where officials will study the thoughts of Xi Jinping, is about to be razed for a Chinese-run special economic zone. According to documents reviewed by Newsweek it will have its own customs and immigration formalities, a shipping port and a dedicated airline and will be able to issue passports. It will establish businesses offering everything from logistics to cryptocurrencies, facial surgery to “virology.”
China, its state-owned companies and aligned private businesses are expanding rapidly in the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda and in other Caribbean countries in this strategic region long known as “America’s third border,” according to a Newsweek investigation of government and corporate documents as well as interviews with Antiguan leaders.
China’s growing regional presence is potentially the greatest external challenge to the United States in the Americas since the Soviet Union set up in Cuba in the 1960s—and the U.S. military is concerned.
“We are aware that China may use its commercial and diplomatic presence for military purposes. In Asia, Africa and the Middle East, China has already abused commercial agreements at host-country ports for military aims; our concern is they may do the same in this region,” a spokesperson for the Florida-based Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) told Newsweek.
China’s move in the Caribbean is especially disturbing with Biden in the White House given Hunter Biden’s ties to the Belt and Road Initiative.
Last summer, The House Oversight Committee released a set of messages from Hunter Biden to a Chinese asset connected to the CCP that appear to show that it was not only the president’s son who was “influence peddling.”
The messages showed “Hunter Biden threatening a Chinese official in order to secure a large payout for a “commitment.” Within a week of that exchange, a subsidiary of CEFC, a Chinese energy conglomerate, wired $5.1 million to Hunter Biden, with part of the money getting flagged by one bank for possible money laundering, writes Red State.
HUNTER BIDEN: ‘We are all saying the same thing I hope. Please let’s put this to bed tonight sign officially tomorrow (or anytime as late tonight as you want) and get to work. I am tired of this Kevin. I can make $5M in salary at any law firm in America. If you think this is about the money it’s not. The Bidens are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this partnership. Please let’s not quibble over peanuts.’
As the House Oversight Committee notes, the very next day after that message, $100,000 was wired to one of Hunter Biden’s shell companies from CEFC. We still don’t know what service was provided to justify such a payment.
The eye-catcher in the exchange is the mention of “the Bidens” being the ‘best I know’ at doing whatever the “Chairman wants from this partnership.'”
Last February, one of Biden’s associates, Gal Luft, stated that the president’s son had a “mole” in the FBI. “Luft claimed that he informed the Department of Justice that the president’s son and brother leveraged connections within the FBI and the Biden name to score a huge payday from China, which allowed the communist nation to promote their Belt and Road Initiative across the globe.
Luft said he became aware of the scheme through his own relationship with Hunter’s Chinese business partners, Patrick Ho and Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC energy conglomerate.”
Hunter has allegedly used “moles” in the FBI to help his Chinese friends as well, tipping them off that they were being investigated.
China has already had unusual influence over the Biden administration. Last August, just days before tapping America’s strategic oil reserve in an effort to manipulate gas prices, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm met with China’s top energy official and sold the oil to a Chinese firm connected to Hunter Biden.
“Granholm’s previously-undisclosed talks with China National Energy Administration Chairman Zhang Jianhua — revealed in internal Energy Department calendars obtained by Americans for Public Trust (APT) and shared with Fox News Digital — reveal that the Biden administration likely discussed its plans to release oil from the SPR with China before its public announcement, according to Fox News.
According to the calendars, Granholm spoke in one-on-one conversations with Jianhua, who is a longstanding senior member of the Chinese Communist Party, on Nov. 19, 2021, and two days later on Nov. 21, 2021. Then, on Nov. 23, 2021, the White House announced a release of 50 million barrels of oil from the SPR, the largest release of its kind in U.S. history at the time.”
That wasn’t the first eyebrow-raising move from the Biden Department of Energy.
Fox News broke the news in 2022 that “the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the grant to Microvast, a Texas-based maker of technology for electric vehicle batteries, under the $1 trillion infrastructure package President Biden signed into law in November 2021. Microvast was one of just 20 American companies to receive a portion of the nearly $3 billion appropriated for a program designed to boost domestic battery manufacturing capabilities.
However, 69 percent of Microvast’s revenue was generated in China and just 3 percent came from the U.S., according to a third quarter financial disclosure it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month. In the same filing, the company acknowledged that the Chinese government “exerts substantial influence” over its business activities and “may intervene at any time and with no notice.’”
New Conservative Post reported that the SEC filings by the company were disturbing: “The PRC government may exert, at any time and with no notice, substantial interventions and influences over the manner in which we conduct our business activities, which we may not be able to anticipate,” the company stated.
“If the PRC government decides to substantially intervene, influence or establish new policies, regulations, rules or laws affecting our business, said substantial intervention or influence may result in a material change to our operations … and could significantly limit or completely hinder our ability to offer or to continue to offer securities to investors, and/or cause the value of such securities to significantly decline or be worthless,” it added.
Biden might not me the one we want dealing with China on our doorstep.
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