CHINA'S PLANS FOR ITS ENCLAVE IN ANTIGUA COULD RESULT IN MASSIVE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS FOR THE UNITED STATES

Cultural Literacy, which I consider mandatory for any effective compliance officer, must include a good Liberal Arts education. That education should feature among other things, a well-rounded study of World History, including Asian History, which is sadly missing these days among those who will become our future compliance directors.

Our problems with China run deep; they go back to the Opium Wars and the large European Spheres of Influence imposed upon China by the Colonial Powers, who wished to exploit the country for windfall profits. Hong Kong & Macau were merely the tip of the financial iceberg Europe extracted from Asia, and China has never forgotten it. One must look past official PRC attitudes towards the West, to see an emerging autocratic superpower that is now extending its own sphere of influence on a global basis, whether it is Belt & Road, or Citizenship by Investment, China is on the move, and the West had better pay attention. Antigua has become a Treaty Port of China, reversing history and playing a bitter trick on the West.

Whereas most observers watching China build its Special Economic Zone, in the center of Antigua's supposedly protected wildlife preserve see economic development, I also see plans for an offshore bank, internal passport issuance capability, an international airline, an improved deepwater port, local law enforcement and immigration, and even a local version of the Chinese Coast Guard to keep out potential problems.

When completed, it will be a totally self-contained state, with the resources and facilities to project its financial and yes, even political, influence throughout the region. Will legacy AML/CFT safeguards protect North America from China's long-term plans and designs for the Western Hemisphere? Will compliance officers be completely outmatched when attempting to staunch the flow of Chinese funds of unknown provenance?

While some Americans fear that they may soon see warships from the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army Navy off the Florida Keys, I worry about highly organized money laundering, resulting in Chinese ownership and control of our financial structure, which could be so massive as to overcome any efforts to rein it in.

it all starts by allowing China to build its own version of Hong Kong in what has been, for decades, an American lake. Where's the Monroe Doctrine when we need it?