It would not be odd if, in various capitals of the smaller states and economies of the world, both officials and citizens are beginning to be somewhat fearful of the continuing economic crisis among many countries in the Eurozone, and of what has appeared to be a gridlock between the centres of government and Congressional decision-making in the United States. And add to that the deepening economic difficulties in the United Kingdom (not part of the Eurozone), where the Cameron government has deliberately decided to proceed on policies of austerity and major public expenditure cuts, causing further unemployment. Many Caribbean citizens will have already been affected by decreases in remittances from both the Britain and the United States.
Oddly enough as small developing economies we are simultaneously finding ourselves separated from the larger countries of the developing world, many of whom have been finding markets and investment possibilities in the last decade or so in the fast-growing Chinese economy. On the face of it we are not able to obtain the degree of empathy from those countries that we might have got in a earlier period, when large Latin American economies like Brazil and Argentina were themselves experiencing deep recessions, almost simultaneously with Caricom states like Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana in the 1970s and ’80s, and at a time too, when few effective pathways were perceived for many, even the fairly large, states on the African continent to attain some degree of prosperity.
Today, as many Caricom states undergo the effects of the end of European preferentialism, and are being simultaneously affected, in terms of the tourism trade, by the recessions in Britain and the United States, we may well be prone to say that we are particular victims of ‘the global recession.’ Yet for countries like Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, like India, long thought to be condemned to a continuing dearth of substantial economic growth, and like Angola and Ghana, there is, of course, no global recession that is affecting them.
Many of these economies have, by design or fortuitously, seen their economies redirected to the growth points of the current global economy as China has gone in search of commodities needed to fuel its own economic growth, and has in turn to provided investment markets. And the Asian economies, once directed to North America and Japan, have found their way out of the sudden recession that their area experienced towards the end of the 1990s, and are themselves fast getting rid of the Cold War fear of China. They are busy thinking of how that economy can be integrated into their region, once economically focused on the US economy. And they are, at the same time, seeking to ensure some degree of balance with their huge neighbour.
Located among the major economies of South East Asia is, of course, the small state of Singapore, no larger in physical size than St Lucia, and once seen as having rapid economic growth only because of a fortuitous geopolitical relationship with the United States as a consequence of the Vietnam War. Singapore has, for the most part, sustained its pace of economic growth for its people by adventurously deciding to partly relocate its economic activities within its regional area, and to seek to exploit areas of need on the part of the larger economies, including China. As the Chinese Ambassador to Singapore noted in September last year, “Singapore’s bilateral economic and trade cooperation has been expanding fast from the coastal areas to the vast inland areas of China,” a sentiment reciprocated by a Singapore Minister in the office of the Prime Minister, in observing that “the Chinese economy has been a stabilizing force and engine of growth for the Asia-Pacific, helping the area out of the global financial crisis.”
In this part of the world, we are prone to argue that Singapore has been led through long periods of autocratic rule, allowing the government to undertake policies of a severity that would not be tolerated in our ‘democratic countries.‘ Yet we are gradually coming to admit that this explanation of Singapore’s growth can hardly stand much scrutiny. For in our own area, Guyana has had long periods of one-man, one-party rule; Eric Williams and Errol Barrow had extended periods in power; and former Prime Minister P J Patterson led his People’s National Party government in Jamaica from 1992 to 2006. So when we look at the records, we see little inherent in the quasi-democratic systems that they governed that inhibited economic decisions similar to those in a Singapore that would not be accommodated by their populations.
So it is perhaps time, as we face another situation of recession in parts of the world in which we have been accustomed to do business, that we seek to find avenues towards possible new relationships as they appear. It is clear that on the South American continent, Brazil has been giving attention to possibilities of integrated development with the old European colonies that have recently (from their perspective) attained independence. That there are huge differences in sizes of countries should not induce us to still lean on the fear of being taken advantage of. The first phase of Guyana’s independence indicated how a sophisticated diplomacy could create balance for a new state wedged between two giants. Guyana now has the possibility of a new, or renewed, Brazilian interest that speaks to some form of integrated structural development across the Guyana Shield, and that would include economic activity across the two new states, not excluding the French Department of Cayenne. If Singapore is not afraid of Chinese exploitation is there any reason to continue to use the language of fear in the Caribbean Community?
The same attitude now needs to be adopted in our relations with the United Kingdom. The Caricom perspective now needs to be Europe-wide, and not simply in the sense of our having an institutionalised relationshipwith the EU as ACP members. Regardless of the present difficulties of Spain, the fact of the matter is that that country will continue to see us through the prism of a Dominican Republic, and that other EU states are likely to take their direction towards the Caribbean from that angle. This calls for a new diplomacy towards a now constantly evolving Europe as a whole, constructed on the basis of a Caricom perspective, exploiting both the commonalities in terms of integration of the Community, as well as the comparative advantage that one or other state may have, or have developed, over time in the Eruopean arena.
As many European countries, each having a vote in the councils of the EU, and feeling as disadvantaged as some developing country, now seek to find ways out of their current economic imbroglios, there will be little time or inclination to appreciate the slogans of “small and vulnerable” and “special and differential treatment.” Their future, post-recession, relationship with us will depend on the lines of interaction that we lay today, and the extent of the familiarity that they have with us in better times. We can no longer simply depend on the ‘great powers‘ of Europe to facilitate their access to us, or our access to their investments, resources or diplomatic empathy in difficult times.
The old language of developmental diplomacy is fast losing its value. The inevitable post North Atlantic return to economic growth will require a new one from us.
