Research Professor calls on US to overlook China’s relations with Guyana - To ensure transparency, lawfulness and equality

Research Professor calls on US to overlook China’s relations with Guyana – To ensure transparency, lawfulness and equality

Jan 16, 2019 News

Guyana’s interest in Guyana will only increase now that the country has yet another valued natural resource—oil. Given China’s track record, many are of the opinion that Guyana should tread lightly.
In fact, even President David Granger had said that he will enter negotiations with China, under the Belt and Road Initiative, with his “eyes wide open.”
Would this be enough?
That is yet to be seen. In the meantime, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Senior Associate, Evan Ellis, is calling on the United States to overlook China’s relations with Guyana now that oil is on its way.
Ellis, in a recent article published on CSIS website, stated that with the no-confidence vote, “Guyana is entering a particularly difficult period, albeit with the promise that could come from making wise use of the nation’s petroleum and other abundant resources.”
He said, too, that Guyana is a country in which the United States has not always been perceived as an attentive friend and partner. As 2019 begins, the United States has an important opportunity and many good reasons to change that perception.
In changing the perception, Ellis wants the US to take on the role of looking out for transparency and equality.
Ellis said that Guyana will continue to be courted by a range of international actors interested in its oil wealth, including China.
He noted that China already has a foot in since China’s state owned petroleum company, CNOOC, has a 30 percent interest in the ExxonMobil-led development of the Stabroek block.
Ellis said that as with its posture towards other countries of the region, the United States should “insist that such engagement is consistent with principles of transparency, equality of treatment, and equality of opportunity before the law.”
Evan Ellis is a non-resident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is a Latin America research professor with the U.S. Army War College.

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