On the face of it, 2009 arrives clouded with the grim realities of international disorder. The overriding circumstance is, as we observed last week, the possibility of a widespread global financial and economic crisis, emanating initially from the centre of the globalised economy, the United States. Towards the end of the 1990s, financial and economic panic struck the East Asian economies which had previously experienced dramatic economic growth. But this disaster was treated as limited to a specific part of the global economy, having in a sense been preceded by the persistent decline of the Japanese economy, seen as a major locomotive of East Asian economic growth.

In that case, the United States, along with the international financial institutions, acted fairly quickly to assist those countries in economic rehabilitation, in much the same way that in the second half of the 1980s the US moved quickly to help staunch the recession and financial crisis that afflicted Mexico, newly integrated into NAFTA. But it was, of course, notable that other Latin American countries like Brazil and Argentina had to more painfully find their own paths through their so-called “lost decade.”

Now all these countries, in Asia and Latin America, look on with some concern about the possibility of a spread of the American recession to their countries, including China, which has had such dramatic growth over the last decade. The extent to which even the very large emerging economies can be affected by the American recession has now become evident, in the face of earlier suggestions that countries like China were becoming almost autonomous locomotives in the international economy.

The globe is virtually on standstill as countries look on to see the form of economic policy that will emerge from the Obama administration. And in countries, like those in Caricom, with close connections with the British economy, there is almost the feeling of experiencing a double whammy.

For many Caricom countries, the recession in the US reinforces fears, already prevalent, about our capacity to sustain over the medium-term the further development of our tourism industries and the initiatives which we have taken over the last decade in terms of participation in the growth of financial services. And in particular, an indication by incoming President-elect Obama, during the electoral campaign, of a somewhat negative attitude to the growth of financial services industries in the Caribbean and elsewhere, naturally provides additional cause for concern.

The recession in the United Kingdom will be seen as similarly affecting the growth of tourism. But perhaps even more seriously from a longer term point of view, it is probably fair to say that Caricom countries involved in sugar, banana and rice production continue to feel that neither the EPA settlement, nor the continuing stalemate in the WTO negotiations, give confidence that we will come to some definitive arrangements on beneficial arrangements to succeed the old and changing preferential arrangements.

But this latter point must serve as a reminder and prompter to us that what we have really done in the last few years in terms of our arrangements for international trade is adopt a receptive, rather than an assertive or innovative role in respect of negotiations concerning the commodities and economic activities of interest to us. In particular the EPA was really a template presented to us on a take-it-or-leave it basis, in a context in which the European Union was anxious to settle matters with countries opposed to their preferential arrangements in advance of a final settlement of the Doha Development Round. This situation we in turn accepted, putting aside any possibilities for strengthening our hand through a search for diplomatic alliances with other, stronger countries involved in similar negotiations with the EU.

A partial exception to this mode of behaviour was perhaps to be seen in the persistence of both Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda, in seeking to ensure an appropriate role for themselves in the realm of financial services (Barbados), and internet gaming (Antigua) as a form of participation in the new world of globalised communication services.

We go into the last year of the first decade of the new millennium, however, concerned with an issue that had not seemed to pose itself before the current American meltdown: the ability of countries like China and India to sustain their own dramatic economic growth in the present atmosphere, and therefore to provide alternative locomotives for the global economy – in other words, their ability to stand as main elements in a truly multipolar economic system, providing alternatives for trade and economic growth for other, less advanced countries.

From our standpoint, our concern in that regard would relate also to the long-term economic standing of Brazil in this hemisphere and in global economic relations. Brazil’s role in the WTO negotiations have for some time now been of concern to us, particularly after she aligned herself with Australia and Thailand in challenging European sugar subsidies. That WTO decision in their favour had immediate implications for Guyana for example.

Since then, the Government of Brazil has been more forthcoming in seeking to assure Guyana and other Latin American states that it is not her intention to, in effect, join the alliance of industrial giants at the expense of less developed countries in this region and the hemisphere, and we should perhaps see her recent hemispheric initiatives in this light. We have, with some alacrity, sought to attach ourselves to the recent collaboration and integration initiatives propelled at the institutional level by Brazil in this hemisphere, as instanced in the recent round of meetings that took place in December. These initiatives are obviously seen by Brazil as the basis for economic and other arrangements that can be an alternative to the failed FTAA initiative of the United States, even as Brazil continues to seek an acceptable framework, through the WTO no doubt, for viable trade with the United States in particular.

Where do these multilateral arrangements position us as a small Caricom bloc? In one sense, some indication has been given, though at the bilateral, rather than the regional or multilateral, levels. We note in that regard, for example, the ethanol initiatives taken, from Brazil, with both Guyana and Jamaica. We note also that the trajectory of recent hemispheric discussions in Brazil involving Caricom are pointing to the necessity to see Cuba as central to Caribbean participation in evolving Latin American and Caribbean integration initiatives, in advance, perhaps, of an American positioning on the evolution of that country in the hemisphere. And we note, further, the effort of the Dominican Republic, with its activist diplomacy under President Fernandez, to more centrally position itself within the triad of US-Latin American-European relations, as the US and Europe continue to struggle for reorganized positions in the hemisphere in this period of the new globalization of trade and production in the North Atlantic.

All this suggests, from the perspective of Caricom in the hemisphere, a need for new strategizing on the evolution of our system in the wider setting. True, we have taken specific initiatives towards Cuba over the years, and it’s obvious to Guyana, Suriname and Belize that alternative patterns of institutional and economic integration will evolve between themselves and the Latin countries, as those countries reorganize their own relations in the wider systems.

Is there the need, now, for some new policy analysis on the, particularly economic, location of our Caricom bloc in the hemisphere, this time treating Caricom in its relationship with the wider West Indian arena, and as being involved in the medium term in a more integrated relationship with Latin America, or significant parts of it?  Is there, perhaps, now the need to go beyond the West Indian Commission’s paradigm of “concentric circles” of Caricom relationships, recognizing that the geopolitical and geoeconomic specificity of Caricom, originating in our long-standing European relationships, is perhaps no longer ideologically or practically feasible? And what is the nature of the diplomacy, and institutionalized relationships that this would entail?

Coming out of the recent meetings in the hemisphere, and the contemplation of an evolving positioning of Cuba in the hemisphere, perhaps we in Caricom need now to be a little less exclusive. Perhaps we could start with a new West Indian Commission, involving also, however, the non-anglophone countries of our region, and involving close collaboration with the hemispheric institutions of which we are members – ECLAC and the Inter-American Development Bank.  In the present circumstances of global economic disturbance, and new emerging powers, must we not think beyond the accustomed norm?