China’s influence in Guyana has grown exponentially in recent years, taking advantage of the country’s oil boom. Beijing is mainly investing in the industries that oil has generated, from infrastructure to hotel construction and even energy supply. Chinese state-owned companies or those with strong ties to the Beijing government, such as Chongqing Bosai Minerals Group, China Railway Road, China Harbour Engineering Corporation (CHEC), and Beijing Construction Group, are flooding the country with various operations.
This expansion has taken a heavy toll on the local population. “Of concern is the lack of transparency in project implementation. Stakeholders, from local businesses to communities of workers, often feel excluded and voiceless,” Jared Ward, an associate faculty member at the University of Arizona Global Campus, whose research focuses on Chinese foreign policy, told Diálogo.
In October 2024, shopkeepers in Agricola Village, a town in the Demerara-Mahaica region where the capital Georgetown is located, protested increased Chinese investment in supermarkets and chain stores, fearing unfair competition. “What is going to happen to people like us who have been in business for years? They will sell at a lower price,” a local trader told Guyanese news site Kaieteur News.
The situation is even more critical in Lethem, on the border with the Brazilian state of Roraima, in the Amazon. According to Kaieteur News, Chinese investments now control the main stores in the area and have also started to back the construction of new buildings. Local traders accuse them of defrauding tax authorities.
The region is strategic because it is Guyana’s gateway to Brazil and is part of the so-called South American Integration Project, a series of major infrastructure investments, sought after by the Brazilian government, to get goods in and out of Brazil quickly. Among these projects is an asphalt road linking Roraima’s capital, Boa Vista, with Lethem, to connect Brazil with the future deep-water port in the Berbice region of Guyana, whose feasibility project was carried out by Chinese companies China State Construction and Engineering (CSCE) and China Dalian.
According to Nicolás Devia-Valbuena, Latin America Program expert of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), this type of investment presents security risks. “We are talking about possible dual-use infrastructures, which have civilian purposes, but which could be used by the Chinese military to project power in the region,” Devia-Valbuena told Diálogo.
Evidence of Beijing’s interest in the region can also be seen in the October 2024 participation of Chinese companies, including China Road and Bridge Corporation, China Railway Construction Caribbean Company Limited, and China Railway First Group Company Limited, in the bidding for the construction of a new bridge over the Berbice River.
Chinese investments in infrastructure
According to Washington-based think tank Jewish Policy Center, CHEC’s expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport also sparked security concerns. “With its runway of over 10,000 feet, it is capable of hosting Chinese military jet aircraft,” the Jewish Policy Center reported.
CHEC has also become a dominant player in Guyana in the hospitality sector, as evidenced by the $100 million expansion of the former Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown.
In addition, construction work is progressing on the new bridge over the Demerara River. The $260 million project was awarded to a joint venture formed by China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), China Railway Construction Company, and China Railway Construction Bridge Engineering Bureau Group. Controversial company CRCC was sanctioned and blacklisted in 2019 by the World Bank for fraud and corruption. In 2022, another Chinese conglomerate, China Railway First Group, was awarded a $184 million contract to expand the East Coast rail and highway system.
A great number of Chinese projects in Guyana have turned out to be of poor quality and unreliable. In 2021, the Matthews Ridge dam, built in the northwest of the country by China’s Guyana Manganese Inc (GMI), a local subsidiary of China’s Bosai Minerals group, collapsed, flooding adjacent communities. According to Guyanese authorities, the collapse was caused by poor materials and poor construction practices.
“The track record of Chinese construction projects in Guyana has raised concerns about their quality and reliability. These problems date back to the 1976 Bel-Lu brick factory, the first Chinese venture in the country, and continue in current projects. Poorly constructed infrastructure and unreliable timelines hinder Guyana’s urgent development needs,” Ward said.
Even the $150 million project to upgrade Cheddi Jagan International Airport took 10 years. Poor quality work was to blame, as CHEC had imposed a contract, which the consortium of local investigative journalists, the Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network (CIJN), viewed as “one-sided.”
According to the CIJN report, “the agreement was that China Harbour Engineering Corporation (CHEC) would be paid the full contract price and released from paying taxes, duties, royalties, and fees imposed by the central or local government and statutory authority.” CHEC also stipulated in the contract that the labor to perform non-technical work should be 60 percent Chinese and that only Chinese citizens could be hired for specialized work.
Environmental risks
Beijing has been pushing into Guyana for years, promising jobs for the local population. Such was the case with the logging company Bai Shan Lin, which in 2007 announced an investment of $100 million in wood processing facilities, promising to provide equipment, create jobs, and respect the environment.
“The case of Bai Shan Lin is a prime example of China’s problems in Guyana. The company has been accused of illegally logging in protected areas and reneging on its commitments,” Ward said.
Guyana Manganese Inc (GMI), a subsidiary of the Bosai Minerals Group, is one of several Chinese companies operating in the Matthews Ridge area and mining manganese. In addition to the numerous complaints it has received for its high environmental impact, it has also been accused of inhumane working conditions for local employees.
“The risks associated with Chinese infrastructure investments have been widely documented not only in Guyana, but worldwide. These projects often create antagonism in local communities, who feel exploited or excluded from the potential benefits that could be derived from infrastructure built on their land,” said Devia-Valbuena.
One example is the Amaila Falls hydroelectric power plant project (2021) in west-central Guyana by China Railway Group Limited. As denounced by Guyanese indigenous rights activist Michael McGarrell, “the plant risks flooding large tracts of land, wiping out the region’s biodiversity, and decimating the indigenous people of the area, who live by hunting and fishing,” he said in a Vice news site documentary. In May 2022, China Railway pulled out of the deal, citing its inability to finance the $700 million project and asking the Guyana government to cover the cost.
However, the Amaila Falls project has raised alarms about Chinese expansion in the energy sector as well. “The potential Chinese monopoly of Guyana’s utilities puts the country in an undesirable position of dependence not only for its electricity needs, but also potentially politically, as local needs could be eroded by Chinese geopolitical interests,” Devia-Valbuena said.
Chinese espionage
In 2023, cybersecurity firm ESET’s Operation Jacana uncovered a sophisticated attack by Chinese hackers on a Guyanese government agency through spear phishing emails. The cyber scam tricks victims into revealing sensitive information, such as their login credentials.
Beijing has had access to Guyana’s networks for years. In 2012, the Chinese government-funded Datang Group bought 20 percent of Guyana’s telecommunications company, Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T). A month later, Datang contracted China’s Huawei to upgrade the country’s wireless network.
“In Guyana, Huawei has already played a role in key projects, such as installing offshore communication cables and providing a wireless network for government employees. These activities raise the possibility of unauthorized access to sensitive government data and individual biometric information,” Ward said.
Huawei is also present in Guyana with the Safe Cities project, which monitors major urban centers in an attempt to fight crime. In 2023, the Chinese company also signed a memorandum of understanding to build, also in Guyana, an artificial intelligence research center that, according to Huawei, “will take care of the entire region.”
“Faced with such a scenario, it will be necessary to build a series of independent institutions dedicated to the protection of citizens’ data, as well as a series of protective barriers for the actions of security forces, something for which the United States and its partners are particularly ready and willing to support,” Devia-Valbuena said.
The Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm has also invested $37.2 billion in six hospitals that are being built by Chinese companies such as China CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd. The risk is that Beijing will be able to access the health data of Guyanese citizens and guarantee itself privileged access to the country’s medical and pharmaceutical sector.
Together with the other Chinese investments, this ensures that Beijing is able to infiltrate on several fronts, which, given Guyana’s strategic position, puts the entire Caribbean region at risk.
