CHINA'S ANTIGUA & BARBUDA SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE POSES AN EMERGING THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES

We hope you were paying attention during your Asian History class at the university, but in case you were dozing off, here is what you should have learned. After the First Opium War, China signed the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, which transferred sovereignty of most of Hong Kong to Great Britain, where it would remain until 1999. Now, in 2024, China and Antigua & Barbuda have effectively turned history on its head, by creating a 1600 acre enclave from Antigua's undeveloped nature preserve, as a special economic zone, or SEZH, administered by Special Economic Zone ( Antigua & Barbuda) Holdings Ltd, as a reverse Hong Kong in America's backyard. China has a very painful memory of how it was exploited by Western Powers, and it has now found a way to pay back the favor.

The new entity has all the trappings of sovereignty that the old Hong Kong possessed; it apparently is already issuing identity cards, if you check the website; it can issue passports, will have its own banks, as part and parcel of its offshore financial center; its own airline (ABSEZ INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES LTD); its own deepwater port facility; its own heavy industries for manufacturing; and everything a national entity needs to thrive, and exert economic, social and political influence on the other states of the East Caribbean.

What is the potential impact upon the United States, you ask? Unfortunately, we can only see the tip of the Chinese iceberg at this point, but the possibilities are dire. China will quickly come to dominate both commerce, as well as politics in the region, which is marked by marginal local economies easily manipulated by the lure of china's billions on hand available to lend to countries that can ill afford to every pay it back, making the East Caribbean vassal states to the Peoples' Republic.

And regarding financial crime, the setup is a fraudsters' and money launderers' dream. Financial institutions outside Western regulatory control, but operating locally, with nearby Cuba and Venezuela as able facilitators. The ability to fly in cash and financial instruments outside any oversight or recordkeeping requirements. Ready access to Antigua's financial structure, which offers access to correspondent accounts at American banks. We have already seen Chinese companies dominating regional CBI/CIP programs took a reported USD$2.5bn back to China, in the Caribbean Galaxy scandal. With a controlled local financial structure, there will be no ceiling on China's ambitions, including in the use of financial crime to amass profits. 

The national security consequences of a fully operational Chinese A & B Special Economic Zone to the United States are a nightmare come true. Unless and until immediate remedial action is taken to blunt the future of this enclave, it is feared that it will become an untenable situation ultimately leading to a direct conflict between the US and China in which there will be no winners, regardless of the outcome. Whether the United States has the skills, and the political strength, to avoid this, and still solve the problem, only time will tell, and history will be watching.