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China is steadily expanding in the Bahamas through projects that blur economic development and geopolitical aims, an expert warned.
“The People’s Republic of China has been making diplomatic, economic and even military and quasi-military inroads into the Caribbean, South and Central America for the past couple of decades,” retired Rear Adm. Peter Brown, former Homeland Security advisor to President Donald Trump, told Fox News Digital.
Brown pointed to the rise in dual-use infrastructure projects along the Bahamas coastline, which is located just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.
“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination for the People’s Republic of China to use its commercial footprint in the Bahamas to monitor, exploit and perhaps even do worse to [the] U.S.,” he said.
“The U.S. Navy has an underwater testing facility, called Autech, that does very significant and sensitive submarine and anti-submarine warfare work,” he said. “[And] the Bahamas are right in the flight path of many space launches.”
Rows of sunbeds and coconut palm trees in Nassau, the Bahamas. (EyesWideOpen/Getty Image)
Strategic importance of U.S.-Bahamas relationship
Brown said that the biggest benefit that the U.S. gets from an ongoing collaborative relationship with the Bahamas is security.
“The better relationship we have, the more secure we can be, because we can detect and deal with issues when they’re still kind on the Bahamas side of the Straits of Florida,” he said.
“From an economic standpoint, the huge gain for the Bahamas is that trade and tourism transportation with the United States,” he said. “So, it’s in our mutual interest for us to have a good relationship with the Bahamians.”
As China increases its presence in the region, the U.S. risks losing influence if it fails to remain the Bahamas’ primary ally, Brown said.
“If we’re not the Bahamas’ best friend, somebody else will be—and we don’t want that somebody to be China.”