ON October 1, 2024, Caribbean nations with ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will join Beijing in observing the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the Republic in 1949.
On a historical note, China-Caribbean ties precede the birth of the PRC in the early 20th Century, when Eugene Chen – a native of colonial Trinidad & Tobago of Chinese descent – served as China’s Foreign Minister from 1926 to 1934, under three successive governments.
And recently in 1970, Guyana’s National Assembly elected Arthur Chung, a son of Chinese immigrants from Fujian province, as its first President.
Sino-Caribbean cooperation has also come a very long way since the 1960s, when Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago became the first English-speaking Eastern Caribbean states to gain independence after centuries of European colonialism.
The PRC has ties with nine of the 14 member-states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the 33 members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
In the past six decades, these ties resulted in greater levels of contact and collaboration, communication and cooperation.
There’s also been more assistance from the PRC to the Latin American and Caribbean regions – from Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) projects and construction of ports and hospitals to other forms of bilateral and multilateral aid, including emergency assistance.
In the First Quarter of the 21st Century, China has outpaced the rest of the world in modernization and laid the irreversible path for the construction of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ by 2049, the Centenary of the establishment of the PRC.
In the past two decades, China’s continuing progress at all levels in Science and Technology has placed it at the forefront of the electronic revolutions engineering the world’s future, while assisting developing nations to build and consolidate South-South development and cooperation through the BRICS alliance.
China’s advances in space exploration and harnessing Nature for Humankind and its role in international diplomacy are evident in every recent global conflict, from Ukraine to Palestine – and now Lebanon.
China leads the world’s implementation of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in Poverty Reduction and Climate Change.
The period from 2008 to 2016 saw positive engagements between the PRC and the elected local administrations in Taiwan Island under the Kuomintang (KMT) party.
But since then, those warm ties have remained deeply frozen under the current ruling Democratic People’s Party (DPP).
However, since 2000, the separatist political forces in Taiwan – led by the DPP – have lost the most allies ever.
That process started in 1953, when Taiwan’s official name (‘Republic of China’) was removed from the list of United Nations (UN) member-states.
Japan recognised the PRC in 1972 – and the USA did likewise in 1979.
The DPP lost nine Taiwan allies between 2000 and 2008 and another ten since 2016 – and seven of the remaining 12 are in the Caribbean and South America.
Taiwan’s remaining CARIOM partners are Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent & The Grenadines, while Guatemala and Paraguay are the only two left in Latin America, alongside Eswatini, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu and The Holy See (Vatican).
Their global impact, however, is rather light – Taiwan’s official friends today together represent 0.17% of the global economy and less than 0.5% of the world’s population.
On the other hand, China and the BRICS comprise 3.2 billion people representing 47% of the world’s population, 36% of the global GDP – and the lion’s share of the world’s natural resources.
The DPP today holds the island’s locally-elected Presidency for a third successive term since 2016, but it’s lost its parliamentary majority.
China’s growing and expanding global influence and increasing acceptance of the One China policy are also major related factors behind Taiwan’s loss of allies – and if the trends are to continue, it can be just a matter of time before the list again starts downsizing after the PRC observes its 75th Anniversary and Beijing continues providing for a better future for Planet Earth and Humankind.
Ties with Taiwan today are undoubtedly unsustainable in the long-term and while the PRC has adopted a wait-and-see attitude, it’s also increasingly assuring the world that ‘Reunification’ is closer than ever today.
Never mind the increasingly costly militarisation of Taiwan by the US and its intensified military presence and interference in the China Seas and the Pacific region, successive administrations in Washington have always stopped just short of assuring the world the US will not go to war with China over Taiwan.
The US and its regional allies continue fanning war flames in the Sea of Japan and the Korean Peninsula, while the US, G-7, European Union (EU) and NATO forces continue financing costly and unwinnable wars in Ukraine and Israel, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and displacement of millions.
Taiwan and its remaining Caribbean allies share common islander sentiments, but their relationships in size and economic power are more akin to that between Taiwan and China.
Taiwan far outmatches its Caribbean allies’ economic and population standings, but its contributions are more cautious, smaller and short-term vis-a-vis the larger and more visible financial and developmental projects associated with ties with the PRC.
Taiwan’s Caribbean ties go back to 1983 and the last four decades have yielded nothing near the PRC’s assistance to the nine CARICOM nations with ties with Beijing.
But Taiwan’s five remaining CARICOM allies that are also members of CELAC also have opportunities to cooperate with and benefit from China’s contributions to issues of global import like Climate Change and environmental emergencies, plus multinational people-friendship events like Sports and Culture.
Not an independent nation, Taiwan is nowhere near winning any new friends today.
Increasing global engagements necessitated by new regional and international developments will also naturally decrease Caribbean allies’ dependence on Taiwan for assistance available elsewhere without having to look and sound like proverbially ‘spitting in the sky’.
After all, as the popular Caribbean paraphrase goes, ‘When push comes to shove…’ pragmatism always gives way to realism.