China’s billion-dollar footprint near Florida coast poses US national security risk, expert warns
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.
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Pointing to the Chinese-controlled British Colonial Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas, Brown said that its location directly across from the U.S. Embassy could give way to intelligence gathering on U.S. personnel.
"It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think that additional electronics were put in there with the purpose and the task of keeping an eye not only on the U.S. Embassy itself, but also the U.S. Embassy visitors," he said.
The hotel is owned by a Chinese company, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, which has raised geopolitical concerns given its location. Fox News Digital has reached out to the British Colonial Hotel for comment.
China has invested heavily in the Bahamas through a range of additional high-profile projects, including a $40 million grant for a national stadium, a $3 billion mega-port in Freeport, and $40 million for the North Abaco Port and Little Abaco Bridge.
Additionally, China EXIM Bank provided over $54 million in loans to construct a four-lane highway and nearly $3 billion to finance the development of the Baha Mar Resort.
Many of these strategic investments came in the wake of the devastating Hurricane Dorian in 2019 that left much of the archipelago nation decimated.
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In 2019, now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned in a Miami Herald op-ed that the devastation caused by the natural disaster could create an opening for the People’s Republic of China to use aid as a Trojan horse to gain a foothold near American shores.
"By targeting the Bahamian government in this period of crisis, Beijing would be making the same opportunistic play to access critical foreign infrastructure," Rubio wrote in 2019. "But in this case, the national security threat is especially perilous, as it would give China a foothold just 50 miles from the coast of Florida."
In addition to growing Chinese infrastructure influence, Brown highlighted the Bahamas' role in U.S. military testing and its position under key space launch paths.
"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."
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."
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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."