At the end of last month President Irfaan Ali made an eight-day visit to China in the company of various officials and members of the private sector. At the end of it he was reported as reaffirming this country’s support for One China, which no doubt was a necessity given the government’s earlier diplomatic faux pas on the matter. The joint statement at the end of the visit couched in the customary diplomatic-speak said the discussions had encompassed “bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest, expressing the shared commitment of the two countries to further deepening and broadening bilateral relations as well as advancing cooperation in the multilateral arena.” On the educational front it was reported that both sides committed to collaboration between educational institutions, the promotion of student exchange programmes and the support of cultural activities.
Significantly, the statement said that Guyana “applauded China’s proposals of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.” Whether the President and his officials were fully informed of the implications of the last three of these is not known. Perhaps if they were they nevertheless decided to express appreciation for them for diplomatic reasons, since commitment was made only to the Belt and Road Initiative.
Whatever the case there was some justification for the question the President was subsequently asked about Guyana’s ability to balance relations between Beijing and Washington. He was quoted as responding: “There is no balance required. We respect every nation. We value our friendship with everyone. Our friendship and our trust is based on principles. We are in no power struggle. We are part of a global system. We believe in multilateralism; we believe in standing strong to values and principles that promote equity for all of humanity. China is a great friend to us. China is an important partner in our development. The US is a great friend to us and a very important partner, also, to our development.”
Treading a fine line between the two global powers may not be as easily achieved as he thinks, and will require care and a certain nicety of judgement. For one thing he will be doing it in a context where China is attempting to diminish America’s primacy in the international arena. Perhaps the main theatre for the encounter between the two is the developing world, where China seeks to become the leading voice advocating what a multipolar world should look like.
President Ali was reported as envisioning a world where the US and China worked together, as this was essential for the global environment. Even now there are practical fields where that happens, and where ideological matters are concerned, there is certainly agreement in principle between them with regard to issues such as the norms of sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, etc. But the hiatus comes in relation to what the West likes to call the international rules-based order, with its liberal norms, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, etc. Beijing believes that these are not universal principles, and that they should not be applied in a global context.
At the Asia Annual Conference in 2021, President Xi Jinping bemoaned the fact that the world was facing a “growing governance deficit, trust deficit, development deficit, and peace deficit.” He went on to ask rhetorically, “What has gone wrong with the world? What is humanity’s way forward?” The answer it seems is President Xi’s Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative which reflect the Chinese Marxist belief that “security is a prerequisite for development, and development is a guarantee for security”; this is the formula for peace. China regards economic development as a human right, and that this takes precedence over all other human rights. In Beijing’s view there is no basis for believing that human rights are a precondition for development.
The two initiatives constitute China’s programme for remaking the international order and global governance, and since Beijing is now entrenched in the UN system it has a forum from where it can try to direct the narrative on what that should look like. And now the Global Civilization Initiative has been added to the duo, underlining President Xi’s assertion at the beginning of this year that “modernization does not equal Westernization.” It has been described as a “state-focused and state-defined values system.” According to Chaguan in the Economist Chinese officials and state media have started arguing that the West’s defence of universal values was a form of chauvinism.
That China, which after all, has been making major investments in many developing nations including here, should receive a sympathetic hearing from them should hardly come as a surprise. While the West dominated international relations for decades after 1945, it demonstrated that in practice it frequently transgressed its own rules. It should not be a source of amazement, therefore, if much of the developing world now regards it as being hypocritical. Nevertheless, the West’s blotted copybook is not an argument for abandoning the principle of universal values.
Anyone who thinks that China is not prepared to be as much of a bully as the US was in the past is deceiving themselves. Guyana discovered that with its short-lived foray into trade contacts with Taiwan, as has Lithuania. Then there was Beijing’s ban on some of Australia’s exports because it called for an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19. And China has extended its authoritarian tentacles into some of the Western democracies by setting up unofficial police stations (those so far identified were in Australia, the US and UK) whose officials put pressure on members of the Chinese diaspora, particularly critics, sometimes threatening them in relation to their families. China does this routinely in respect of Uighurs outside the country, particularly those living in Turkey, while the Hong Kong authorities who are answerable to Beijing, have placed ransoms on the heads of democracy activists living in the UK, the US and Australia.
There are softer level approaches too, such as through the Confucius Institutes which are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. There is certainly good reason for the teaching of Mandarin in tertiary institutions as well as exposure to Chinese culture, but in some places concern has been expressed about the fact that the Institutes are under the control of a foreign agency, and that they probably suppress full freedom of speech. However, that possibility does not seem to have perturbed the UG authorities, for example.
In addition, it was reported in our edition yesterday that nine scholarship awardees will be pursuing studies in China, one of whom at least will be studying international economy and trade. Perhaps the authorities here should be more cautious about the subject areas which are chosen. That said, the Government of China has been generous with its scholarships and educational assistance, and 56 people will be trained in the country this year. According to the Ambassador thousands of others have attended courses online and more training courses were in the offing.
Where sovereignty and China is concerned, there is the matter of the South China Sea, which has always been regarded as international waters, but which China is now trying to convert into a private marine space. The islands of the South China Sea are claimed by various nations, and in 2016 the ICJ declared Beijing in contravention of the International Convention on the Law of the Sea. But there is China, which refuses to recognise the decision and has militarised the islands, reefs and shoals of the Spratlys in particular, defending its illegal occupation with its Coast Guard and Maritime Militia, which consists of fishermen in steel-hulled boats. So much for President Xi claiming that China would avoid the “crooked path taken by some countries to seek hegemony once they grow strong,” and so much for him respecting international governance institutions.
The Western fear is that given China’s strong presence in multilateral institutions and its new Initiatives it has the tools for influencing the thinking of developing nations. Potentially it could persuade them to sever human rights issues from other matters of international governance, which in turn would facilitate autocracies coming to office in these nations. And China prefers dealing with autocracies. Apart from anything else there would be no criticism of human right abuses in China or anywhere else. With a backing of numbers in international fora, current notions of a rules-based order would go into abeyance.
Guyana is a country with a long history of slavery and indentureship, and citizens here, at least, (although not necessarily governments) know what democracy and freedom mean. As he negotiates between Beijing and Washington, President Ali might do well to pay attention to Chaguan’s words:
“Transparent rule, free speech and independent courts are not … tenets of some alien Western religion. Accountable governance is like clean water: a public good that all deserve to enjoy. Liberal democracies are entitled to notice China leading the fight against such rights.”
