Welcome Taiwan but not so fast folks

Feb 06, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Reference is made to the article titled, “Guyana agrees to Taiwan investment office here – likely to sour relations with China” (SN February 4). I think that sour is as subtle an understatement as I have encountered recently, with this hello Taiwan, and goodbye China, which tastes like acute acid reflux. I hope that we are not exchanging one devil for another, compliments of American pressure, now manifested distinctively. And then, those initial reactions all went out the window; that all went topsy-turvy, through complete reversal for what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation labelled a “miscommunication.” Indeed!
Editor, I regret that I cannot give the benefit of the doubt on this “miscommunication.” Instead, I think that the PPP’s leadership is playing a dangerous three-card game while navigating blindfolded a hissing snake pit; it had to pull up short and settle for the bitter Buckley’s tonic of “miscommunication.” I think that somewhere along the line that the top brass was reminded very sharply as to the full extent and implications of what is involved in what amounted to a severe rupturing of relationship with mainland China. For the government chief cooks could not speak of a ‘one’ China policy, while elevating one to ‘favoured’ nation status, and marginalizing the other (the big one) to the wilderness. I have a feeling big China was not going to take that one sitting down, which put a shaft into the calculations of my American fellows, who had welcomed the Taiwan development. As the coalition was quick to point out, some damage has been done with what was a monumental blunder, and which is sure to leave chronic distrust on the part of the China crowd that is here. It is not a good working and partnering atmosphere. And I remind one and all: the Chinese do not think or function by the calendar; they operate by eras and ages.
Editor, I will be candid: I am not a fan of how the mainland Chinese does business. Meaning, how they set things up, and how they capitalize voraciously to the detriment of poor host nations. Specifically, given their record with the CJIA Expansion Project; their duty-free excesses that haunts Guyana’s private sector (no shrinking violets themselves); their project Trojans (not the protectives, but those gift horses); and their studied exploitations of our political innocence and commercial hospitality, there is little love here.
Now, I think that a huge spanner has been thrown into American machinations and calculations. It is American style business; and there is ongoing concern about who is in their backyard, and can weigh powerfully against its interests and projections. To be a bit clearer: I do not think for a minute that that Taiwan development was any “miscommunication” or that it flowed initially from Guyanese political leadership minds. It is my belief that it was influenced and prompted by America, and for which the fallouts have to be faced.
Now the Taiwanese have to unpack their bags and redraw their plans. On the other hand, the Chinese capitalists are spared the rod of being unofficially blacklisted. Nobody – not the Chinese, not Guyanese, and certainly not yours truly – is persuaded about that confounded nonsense about “miscommunication.” It is why I say that the PPP leadership has to be wise about these about faces, and still more careful with their relationship juggles. As I absorb all of these political intrigues, I come to a conclusion that should have touched many Guyanese by this time. Nowadays Guyana is more enchanting, more seductive than Diana and Priyanka and Sophia. It is that perfume and ambrosia called oil (and gold and all those trees and fishes and whatever else that we have); there are none like those two to make a man or leader or country lose their minds, their instigated convictions and their shaky resolve. Until the next time, it is sayonara and ta-ta Taiwan, bienvenida China. Make no mistake; it is the big behemoth on the mainland that is here to stay for a little while longer.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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