Is China behind Barbados' move to ditch the Queen?

That came after Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, the hawkish chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee, accused China of "tying new nations into its own imperial order" through "debt diplomacy".

Barbados, one of 15 Commonwealth countries where the Queen is head of state, said in mid-September it would look to remove her from that post by November 2021, marking the country's 55th anniversary of independence.

The country has proposed becoming a republic at least twice in the past few decades, and the move reportedly has bipartisan support. But Barbados signed up to the BRI in February 2019, and in October last year Beijing convened a BRI regional summit with Barbados, alongside other Commonwealth nations, Jamaica and the Bahamas.

China's embassy in Britain broke cover to "deplore and oppose the comments that distort China-Barbados relations".

"It is definitely not China's tradition to interfere in others' domestic affairs, nor are we interested or willing to do so," an embassy statement said. "We never impose ourselves on others. Each and every project is the result of equal-footed consultations."

Chinese state-run newspaper The Global Times said Mr Tugendhat's real motivation was a reluctance to "face the waning power of the UK".

Writing in the Barbados Advocate at the weekend, Antiguan ambassador to Washington and former candidate for Commonwealth Secretary General Sir Ronald Sanders argued that loans did not create "coercive influence".

"Loans must be repaid, including Chinese ones whose main attraction is their longer repayment periods and lower interest rates," he wrote.

"If anything, it is other powerful states that provide space for China in the Caribbean by not offering money on competitive terms and by refusing to support issues [such as climate change and debt forgiveness] that are vitally important to Caribbean states."

Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, said he hadn't seen "any persuasive evidence of cause and effect" linking Barbados's announcement either to Chinese pressure or to the Black Lives Matter debates.

"It doesn’t sound like it would be high on China’s agenda. In any case, the link to the Crown isn't really a sign of British influence. If anything, it tends to complicate the relationship; and if the Foreign Office had had any say in the matter it would probably have ended decades ago," he said.

He noted that Barbados was the lowest-hanging republican fruit, as its government could effect the change without a referendum – unlike most of the eight other Caribbean realms.

"The interesting question is whether, if Barbados does manage to make the transition in 2021 or thereafter, it might give more impetus to Jamaica or other countries in the region," he said.