'Asleep at the Wheel': UK Bashed as China Has Pumped $900 Bln Into Commonwealth Nations Since 2005

Over the past sixteen years, Beijing has invested almost $667 million in Barbados, a Commonwealth member state set to become a republic on Monday.

China has injected £685 billion ($913 billion) into 42 Commonwealth countries since 2005, figures compiled by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank, have revealed.

The figures showed that over the past sixteen years, China has pumped nearly £500 million ($667 million) into roads, homes, sewers, and a hotel in Barbados, a Commonwealth member set to become the world's newest republic next week.

In neighbouring Jamaica, Beijing has invested about £2.6 billion ($3.4 billion) versus a gross domestic product of £16.4 billion ($21.8 billion), making the Caribbean island nation the biggest recipient of Chinese money in the region.

The report comes as UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss announced plans on Wednesday to replace the Commonwealth Development Corporation with British International Investment.

She voiced hope that the new body would provide "up to £8 billion ($10 billion)" in investments per year in Commonwealth countries by 2025, up from the current £1.5 billion ($2 billion), by encouraging the private sector and western allies to put money into member states.

With many welcoming the plans, critics say they wonder why it has taken so long for London to initiate the move on British International Investment.

Didi Kirsten Tatlow, a senior non-resident fellow with the Sinopsis Project in Prague, which describes iself as a world-leading resource on China's foreign policy, told The Telegraph that "we [the UK] have been completely asleep at the wheel for decades".

"We fundamentally misunderstood what the Chinese Communist Party is, and what it wanted. We have blundered into this scenario. They are using their considerable financial resources to build strategic dependencies in societies wherever they can. This is how you start to control the world around you and start making it safe for totalitarianism because countries can't afford to do anything about it", Tatlow claimed.

The expert was echoed by Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a UK-based foreign policy and national security think tank, who argued that China appears to be targeting the Commonwealth because Beijing perceives it as "weak".

"They would like to undermine whatever they can internationally, so they can pick off countries and prevent anti-Chinese resolutions in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. […] China is commercially preying on the Commonwealth. The question is, can we respond with a better offering? Can the UK steer western investment funds into these places?", Mendoza wondered.

Baroness Helena Kennedy, a prominent human rights barrister, for her part, asserted that "what China is doing is a way of making friends and it impacts on votes in the UN".

"It has a serious impact, it starts being a return to the old Cold War scenario and that's not a healthy way for us to be going forward. The money they are investing does start to penetrate our areas of influence. One wants to strengthen the Commonwealth, not find it undermined", she underscored.