China’s increasing influence in the Commonwealth of Nations

China are attempting to unify developing nations under a PRC leadership of a shared collective grievance with the ‘west’ for past transgressions; in China’s case, the so-called ‘century of humiliation’ between 1839 and 1949, and for the rest of the developing world its colonial past and the age of ‘western imperialism’. [...] Comparatively, China enjoyed a 183 per cent trade surplus with Africa (2020) worth US$52 billion to China, as Beijing continue to demonstrably use Africa primarily as an export market – whilst both the UK and the US use the continent as overwhelmingly (in the case of the UK in particular) an import market, leading to severe trade deficits for both the UK and the US. [...] Chinese Ambassador to Guyana, Cui Jianchun, said that China highly values the relationship between the two countries, and that China stands ready to further broaden and deepen the exchange and cooperation between the military forces of the two country: ‘For many years, the PLA has been providing military aid and training to the GDF, which is beneficial to the development of the GDF and the friends. [...] Whilst the PLAN are conducting their 43rd continuous anti-piracy deployment in the GoA, now based permanently out of the Chinese naval support base in Djibouti, it is to the west of the continent, and to the Gulf of Guinea (GoG), which the PLA have been increasingly active in. [...] China and the Solomon Islands In April 2022, China and the Solomon Islands established a security agreement which has already paved the way for significant security repercussions for both the UK and the US – whilst in effect signing over great swathes of power and sovereignty to Beijing.