Our economy pulled from under our feet by a few savvy foreigners

May 01, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
Land: $20,000,000
Cheap plastic goods: $500
Low interest loans: US$141,000,000
Losing control of your resources, land, and country: priceless.
China has been showing itself to Africa and Latin America as a benefactor and friend. They are trying to spread international goodwill through their newly deep pockets. But one must ask at what price?
Guyana is a nation of approximately 800,000. For a country nearly the size of the United Kingdom we produce little and have low international recognition. It would not take a lot for our economy to be pulled from under our feet by a few savvy foreigners. The foreigners in particular are the Chinese. They come bearing gifts and cheap products, investment and development. But one thing we constantly forget they bring are their people.
Across Africa, China has been developing many African nations with money and construction. But they don’t hire the African, they bring their own workers. But these workers do not return to China, they stay and begin to open up businesses. They begin to under-price and push out the local producers, manufacturers and vendors. The business supply chain at every level is Chinese. Before long, they will be a vast minority of the population and a vast majority of the economy.
Books have already been written on the subject. One in particular: “China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa” by Howard French details how the Chinese are developing Africa, not for the African, but for themselves. This, however, is not a new Chinese move.
At university I made a friend from Malaysia. He was at university on a government scholarship to study applied mathematics. By all accounts he is a bright man with a good future ahead of him. Malaysia is growing, but the problem is people like him are not necessarily positioned to take part. Malaysia, much like our beloved Guyana, is a nation of many races. Whereas Guyana is a nation of Blacks, East Indians, Amerindians, Portuguese, (and a few Chinese from way back), Malaysia is a nation of Malays, East Indians (they just call them Indians)…and Chinese.
The Chinese went there long ago during the days of the British Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. Much like Guyana is now, Malaysia then was much undeveloped. The Chinese came in, enterprising as they are now, started business, pushed out local business and slowly but surely over time took control away from the Malays. Today, they are 25% of the population and 70% of the Malaysian economy.
Even with the help of their most revered leader, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who had a national vision to rapidly develop and modernize Malaysia, who instituted policies intended to support the ethnic Malay population in business, the Chinese today still dominate the Malaysian economy.
So you see, it has happened and it is happening elsewhere. Let’s keep Guyana, Guyanese.
Concerned Guyanese

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