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Petra Williams
www.petrathespectator.com
China’s 80th World War Victory Commemorations in Beijing and the subsequent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin were more than mere diplomatic displays.
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They blended spectacle with strategy.
In Beijing, foreign leaders joined President Xi Jinping in reviewing military formations, flyovers, and pageantry designed to honour the
defeat of fascism and to elevate China’s status as a victorious power.
The events depicted China as both the protector of global peace and the successor to the wartime coalition that reshaped the world order.
Days later in Tianjin, Xi moved from symbolic remembrance to practical diplomacy, hosting heads of state from Russia, North Korea, Central Asia, Africa, and beyond during the SCO Summit.
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The message was clear: China was not only commemorating history but also assembling coalitions to influence the future.
By anchoring global leadership in narratives of wartime resistance and sacrifice, China frames itself as a guardian of peace.
The SCO Summit in Tianjin extended this symbolism into practical coalition-building.
Heads of state from Russia, North Korea, Central Asia, Africa, and beyond signalled that China’s appeal rests not just on its market size but also on the stories it tells about legitimacy, sovereignty, and anti-hegemony.
Particularly striking was the presence of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Relations between Beijing and New Delhi have been strained in recent years, marked by border clashes and strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region.
Yet Modi’s attendance underscored the magnetic pull of China’s commemorative diplomacy: even wary rivals are compelled to
engage, if only to avoid isolation in a forum where much of the Global South was represented.
For Washington, this is a reminder that U.S. partners are not in lockstep.
India can be both a counterweight to China and, at times, a pragmatic participant in China’s spectacles of power.
This duality complicates the United States’ attempt to frame the contest as a strict choice between democracy and authoritarianism.
The SCO proceedings highlighted shifting alignments.
While Europe hesitates, and America’s allies in Asia double down on deterrence, many nations in the Global South are hedging, drawn by China’s financing and President Xi’s philosophy of a community of shared future for mankind.
These gatherings may lack policy detail, but optics shape outcomes.
A photo with Xi in Beijing or Tianjin may translate into votes in the United Nations, or contracts awarded to Chinese firms in critical sectors.
The Caribbean Frontlines
Caribbean leaders were not present at the SCO Summit in Tianjin, but that absence should not be mistaken for disengagement. China’s influence in the region has been advancing through
quieter, more durable channels. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the China–CELAC Forum have become the real stages of engagement. Nearly two-thirds of the Caribbean and Latin America are now linked to the BRI, and several Caribbean states are beneficiaries of infrastructure projects, including Antigua and Barbuda’s Booby Alley Housing Renewal
Project, now in progress, and the completed Deep Water Harbour expansion. The
transformative impact of the BRI projects beyond our shores, as exemplified by Jamaica’s
North–South Highway and Guyana’s Demerara River Bridge, is also noteworthy.
These are not ceremonial gestures; they are long-term investments that bind small economies to Beijing’s financing and trade networks.
As an Antiguan and Barbudan born and raised in The Point with a ringside seat to the urban transformation of the housing project and the harbour expansion, I recognise these concrete examples of Beijing’s imprint as reminders that geopolitics is not an abstraction, but a matter of the houses we live in and the ports we trade from.
The contrast is stark. While Tianjin projected images of great-power solidarity, China’s Caribbean strategy is built on practical partnerships that answer immediate needs for development financing, connectivity, and climate resilience.
For open, vulnerable nations burdened by debt and acute climate threats, the promise of roads, ports, and concessional lending often outweighs distant assurances from Washington that a big brother is watching.
The symbolism of World War victory may not resonate as strongly in St. John’s or Roseau, but the material pathways of the Belt and Road do.
Rising seas and intensifying hurricanes pose existential risks that cannot be ignored as the region sets its priorities. For us in the Caribbean, these are not metaphors; they are the realities that determine whether our communities survive. Yet here is one of Washington’s blind spots. Under the Trump administration, climate diplomacy has been deprioritized, with adaptation financing reduced to sporadic pledges at best. For Caribbean leaders, this indicates that America does not take our survival seriously. Into this vacuum steps China, which continues to demonstrate itself as a partner responsive to the vulnerabilities of Small Island Developing States. The optics matter.
Security concerns deepen the divide further. U.S. military presence near Venezuela, justified as a crackdown on drugs, may send a strong signal to President Nicolás Maduro, but it also causes uneasy ripples across the Caribbean. Countries that maintain historical or economic ties to Caracas through Petrocaribe energy deals and migration fear instability. Others prefer Washington’s security support but remain cautious about escalation. These reactions unfold amid existing divisions: some Caribbean nations recognise Taiwan, while others adhere to the one-China policy. In this environment, America’s military assertiveness in the region could push hesitant governments toward China’s influence, just when Washington needs regional
unity.
The lesson for U.S. policymakers is blunt: in the Caribbean, survival trumps spectacle. A strategy anchored in military undertakings and occasional diplomatic visits, along shifting anti-Caribbean development policies, will not suffice. To retain influence, Washington must consider marrying security engagement with serious climate diplomacy and sustainable
investment. Otherwise, China will continue to grow as a pragmatic partner, financing
development and providing tangible support to mitigate the existential threat of climate change on a shared future.
Washington’s Choice
Washington’s best interest will not be served if the Caribbean is viewed as a strategic afterthought. The leaders of the region may not march in Tianjin, but our votes in
international forums, our ports and digital networks, and our ability to survive in a climate- changed world matter to the balance of power. Should Washington persist with self-serving military displays, policy shifts, and sporadic diplomatic “talk-shop” meetings while Beijing continues to build roads, ports, and symbolic solidarity, the outcome is clear: the Caribbean will tilt, quietly but steadily, toward China’s orbit.
Conclusion
China’s commemorations and the Tianjin SCO Summit were not about nostalgia; they
focused on the future. President Xi utilised history to inform his global diplomatic objectives.
For the Caribbean, global pageantry may happen far away, but its effects are felt on our
shores. Our numbers and voices will remain influential in the current worldwide diplomatic shift. The United States’ inward focus on domestic interests incurs international
consequences. If it wants to stay relevant, it must pair symbolism with substance and
pageantry with partnership. China’s “community of shared future for mankind” becomes the prevailing narrative in our part of the world.
China’s pageantry and partnerships ripple into the Caribbean, where climate and development shape choices more than ideology.
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Well said and written