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Abstract
This paper examines the new role of 'Global China' in the Anglophone Caribbean, particularly in the small islands of the Eastern Caribbean, both from the point of view of bilateral Chinese state development aid and investment and from the point of view of the parallel or convergent flows of private entrepreneurial Chinese immigrants (and linked labour migrants) into the region over the last 15-20 years. This new presence has to be seen in the context of (a) China's outbound state capitalism and growing role as a global development agent, particularly in the countries of the Global South, (b) the 'post'-neoliberal development vacuum in the Caribbean (as in many countries of the Global South) and the relative attractiveness of the Chinese development assistance model, and (c) the importance of the region as a theatre for the diplomatic contest between China and Taiwan. Preliminary field work in Dominica and St. Kitts animates the discussion of the larger contexts.
Keywords Chinese immigrants * Caribbean * entrepreneur * global spatial-circuits
LOCATING THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN EXPERIENCE WITHIN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
This paper comesoutofa larger research projectwhose purpose is to examine the new role of 'Global China' in the Anglophone Caribbean, particularly in the small islands of the Eastern Caribbean, from the point of view of both (a) bilateral Chinese state development aid and investment, and (b) the simultaneous or convergent flows of private entrepreneurial Chinese immigrants (and related or accompanying labour migrants) into the region. In this paper I focus on (b), the second aspect. Despite the frequent assumption that the private immigrant flows are directly connected to the Chinese state presence, they are, in fact, as much in evidence in Taiwan aligned islands as they are in those islands whose governments have switched allegiance to the People's Republic of China (PRC). The overwhelming majority of recent ethnic Chinese immigrants in all the Caribbean territories are from mainland China regardless of diplomatic alignments. There is no question that the simultaneous flows of Chinese developmental capital and aspiring Chinese merchants are mutually connected to the globalization of China and its multifaceted 'outbound' trajectory since the late 1980s. However, aspiring Chinese merchants do not require the physical presence of a Chinese embassy in their quest to activate transnational entrepreneurial networks,...