What will become of the Bahamas?

I'm sure everyone knows that Dorian wiped out pretty much all of the Abacos and most of Grand Bahama. The capital, Nassau is on the island of New Providence and it was spared most of the carnage.  The total population of the Bahamas is only about 330k people.  About 50k of them live(d) on Grand Bahama.  The Abacos had about 18k people.  So in total, 68k people were badly affected, many losing everything, out of a population of 330k not very rich people.  In other words, 20%.  This is probably too many for the government (meaning the relatively unaffected other 80%) to bail out.  While some humanitarian operations are in progress, the main industry of tourism is in big trouble for the next few years.  Nobody wants to visit the site of a nuclear explosion.  And make no mistake, Freeport on Grand Bahama and Marsh Harbour on Abaco (top left picture) look just like the pictures in the aftermath of Hiroshima (black and white shot above) and Nagasaki.


In addition, the people there are complaining loudly that their government is doing nothing.  And of course this is really a statement that the problems are much bigger than their government can handle. But it won't stop the people from demanding miracles and getting very very angry if miracles don't happen.

So I'm looking at all of this and wondering what might happen next.  And it strikes me that the only thing the Bahamian government can do is to go begging for help.  But I don't think big help is coming for free.  I think "help" will be like trying to get money from the shark tank TV show.  It will come with strings this time.  And the Bahamian government will take the deal because if they don't the people will find new government who will take the deal.

The obvious choice for finding a savior of the Bahamas is the USA.  Americans seem to genuinely care about the Bahamas in ways that I did not see happening with Puerto Rico when it got destroyed.  That might simply be because the Bahamas is so close to Florida and it is a favorite boating destination for Floridians.  But the outpouring of Florida-led humanitarian aid shows that there is political will at some level to help.  In fact, WaPo is telling its readers that we have to go help.

But to me the wildcard is China.  China has been an investor (though Hong Kong) for decades and currently remains the largest investor in the islands.  What if China waits until the Bahamian government finally figures out just how untenable its situation is and comes in to play the white knight?  After all Bahamas needs a big cash injection and also a labor injection.  China needs to keep people working through a trade war.  And China has a printing press which is going a mile a minute and has been for some time.  As the #2 economy in the world seeking to become #1, China could really poke the USA in the eye hard if it were to go make the Bahamas an offer it could not refuse due to the suffering of 20% of its people.

So what if China came in and said it would not only rebuild the country, but to a grander scale than before, if only the Bahamians would pledge fealty to the Chinese, and somehow made it legal.  In other words, the Bahamas would become the Puerto Rico of China.  The world would probably applaud it as a humanitarian effort and it would certainly lead to a better life for poor Bahamian citizens.  What if China requested Bahamians to accept yuan like they accept US dollars today?  What if they requested rights to patrol their military boats in Bahamian waters "in the name of security, anti drug, anti human trafficking", and the other bullshit reasons that governments give to the people to paper over their blatant power grabs?

Clearly this could not be allowed by the US because if we did allow it, then how long would it be until the Chinese, with permission of their newly puppeted Bahamian pawn government, build more Spratly Island style missile bases on the little Bahama Bank to the north of Grand Bahama?  There is no way the US can allow the Chinese to have missiles that close to the US.  And so despite Trump's early caution with swinging the doors open to support the Bahamas, China could easily force the US into action with a simple press release stating that they intended to make a large "humanitarian investment" over there.  Everyone in DC would know that is elite speak for "territory expansion" and "empire building".

I have a personal stake in the Bahamas.  I already own 3 small bare lots there.  One of them had minor improvements done by me but just enough to support docking my boat there.  These are near West End and fortunately there was no damage to my current assets over there.  But before the storm was a storm I had entered into an agreement to buy a 4th property, this one with a house on a canal on the south side of Freeport on Grand.  Again, fortunately for me this place survived the storm intact because the winds and the storm surge attacked from the north.  So there was no flooding in Fortune Bay where the property is located.  I still intend to close on this place in the next 45 days because the deal I got was the best pricing since the 1980s but if (and yes a big iff meaning I see it as a possibility but not a prediction) the US and China get into a bidding war for control of the Bahamas then it could get very interesting very quickly over there.