The Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister, Ambassador Lionel Max
Hurst, has penned a letter to the newsroom of Newsweek Magazine protesting the
assumptions and the tone of an article it published at the weekend which suggested
that China was exerting undue influence in Antigua and Barbuda government
among other conclusions.
The full text of Ambassador Hurst’s letter is attached.
19 April 2024
Editor-In-Chief
Newsweek Magazine
Dear Editor,
Your recent article about the relations between Antigua and Barbuda and the People’s
Republic of China seems to reflect the thinking of a by-gone age. Antigua and Barbuda is a
modern country barely forty years independent and sovereign. China has a civilization that
reaches back five thousand years. Antigua and Barbuda continues to seek friends among all
the nations of the world and rejects the notion that it is in any country’s “backyard”. China
has proven to be a reliable developmental partner and a good friend to many small and
large states around the globe. The rivalry between China and the United States shall not be
deemed a replay of Cold War practices.
Antigua and Barbuda is also a great friend of the United States. Our soldiers are trained by
SouthCom, our security is bolstered by U.S. Coast Guard and other branches of the U.S.
military, and our number one trading partner is the United States.
This journalistic tendency to harp backwards on a Cold War paradigm is hurtful to the
people of Antigua and Barbuda, as we turn to making friends that will respond to the needs
of a small island-State like ours. There was a time when the USA was exceedingly generous
and helpful in engineering a sustainable future for its friendly neighbours in the Caribbean;
its diplomats complain bitterly and publicly that the US Congress deprives the State
Department of the resources needed to continue to win friends and influence leaders.
We completely reject your characterization of the friendship between Antigua and Barbuda
and the People’s Republic of China as being somehow sinister and dangerous to the United
States and its interests. Our hope is that your readers will not be afflicted with the same
harmful disease that plagued US/USSR relations and citizens of both States prior to 1989.
Our leaders are smart, have access to the same information as many of yours, and certainly
are more clever that the journalists who deliberately choose to mischaracterize the foreign
relations of friendly States.
Ambassador Lionel Hurst
Chief of Staff
Office of the Prime Minister
Antigua and Barbuda
