The week before last Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn and Deputy Police Commissioner ‘Operations’ Ravindradat Budhram flew to China to attend the Global Public Security Forum. According to the Home Affairs Ministry its theme was ‘One World, Common Security’, and it was said to have been attended by more than 500 officials and others from over fifty countries, regions and international organisations. In the bureaucratese which characterises so many of these communications, the public was told that the Forum was directed at “forging a network for cross-sector collaboration, building a mechanism for transnational, inter-departmental, and cross-industrial coordination, promoting partnerships for law enforcement capacity building and providing high-quality public goods and services for security.”
If that left citizens here yawning, what came next could conceivably have attracted a little more notice from them. They were told that the intention was to consider “introducing a system for information exchange and sharing, establishing an internationally standardised think tank, and facilitating the supply and demand of services for overseas security protection so as to provide the international community with more security solutions.” And all of this, it must be remembered, will be according to the Chinese rule book, which regards human rights concerns as little more than an expression of Western chauvinism. The leading human right, as far as the Chinese are concerned, is economic development. So forget about liberal values and the rule of law.
In the circumstances one can only wonder what representatives of our government at such a high level were doing there. Was it just to assuage the Chinese considering all the assistance they have given us in terms of health and education? If so, the administration has to be very careful about how it connects with this project and what it signs on to. If in contrast the ruling party is taking all this at face value, then it had better tell the populace whether it is proposing to abandon the principles of democracy and all the values which are attendant on that.
If the developing world looks at the West with a jaundiced eye, it has only itself to blame, having transgressed the precepts it promotes many times since 1945. That does not mean to say, however, that these in and of themselves are redundant; they represent a standard to which the world, especially the West should not just aspire, but as far as possible also adhere. For its part China is close to qualifying as a police state, and when dealing with the outside world prefers autocracies to democracies. So again, it has to be recognised that what it perceives as security in an international context and how that is to be achieved will not correspond to a rules-based order as it has been traditionally understood.
In terms of this country, could Minister Benn not inform the public about the outcome of the discussions at the Forum relating to the listed topic ‘Forecasting the Global Security Outlook’? Or what the exchanges were on ‘Enhancing Governance Capacity Building’, considering (hopefully) not all participants would have been on the same wavelength where that was concerned? The precise import of ‘Sharing Development Fruits Guaranteed by Security’ is not immediately apparent, so perhaps the Minister could enlighten us, although it is nothing like as obscure as ‘Forecasting the Synergy on Public Security’ which he definitely would have to define for the uninitiated, i.e. most of the rest of us. If he declines to give any account of what came out of the Forum and to what Guyana subscribed, it will be assumed that all the verbiage relating to it is intended to obscure its real object, and that this government is in sync with that.
From China’s current behaviour there are some conclusions which can be arrived at in terms of how it considers the relations between states should be governed. One which is of particular interest to Guyana relates to the fact that it seems to hold no brief for international courts. China claims sovereignty over virtually the whole of the South China Sea, which overlaps the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia. In 2016 the ICJ ruled China’s claims in contravention of the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, but Beijing simply refuses to recognise the decision.
It continues to try and turn that sea which is rich in natural resources as well as an important transit route for international shipping into its private lake. In the process it has militarised islands, reefs and shoals which others claim, defending them with its Coast Guard and even its fishing fleet which is kitted out with steel-hulled boats. Only last week, for example, the Philippines removed a floating barrier placed by China around the Scarborough Shoal, a major fishing area, which was intended to prevent Filipino fishermen from accessing it.
There have also been recent tensions over Manila’s refusal to tow away a warship which they grounded near the Second Thomas Shoal and which is within their economic zone, in order to use it as a military outpost. China clearly wants to take possession of the Shoal, and is in the habit of preventing the outpost from being resupplied. This last happened a few weeks ago when not for the first time, it used a water cannon against a Philippine boat. Beijing went on to accuse Manila of ‘provocation’, maintaining it would take all the measures which were necessary to protect its sovereignty and its maritime rights.
In other words, for all the accusations made against the US and other Western countries about their past behaviour, it transpires that China is no less of a bully in the international arena. It will be remembered, for example, that it banned some Australian exports for a time because that country had asked for an independent inquiry into Covid-19. That aside, the fact that it can dismiss a decision by the World Court is of particular interest here, because should the ICJ hand down a decision unfavourable to Venezuela next year or the year after, and Caracas rejects it, we cannot expect any support from China. The US and Britain, the former colonial power, will support us, but not the nation which wants to rewrite the international rules in its own interest. And it therefore becomes relevant for Minister Benn and his President to ask themselves if Beijing’s interest is our interest.
Then there is China’s failure to abide by its international treaties, specifically the Sino-British Joint Declaration by which it agreed to uphold the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in Hong Kong, but which it has now reneged on with its security law. Even before that law came into effect, UN human rights experts told China that it “infringe[d] on certain fundamental rights.” So now we have a major democratic party in Hong Kong closing down, bounties being placed on the heads of democracy activists who have taken refuge in the West and the eclipse of the era of free speech and presumably eventually, an independent judiciary too.
It has been widely reported that Beijing has been operating unofficial police stations in North America, Australia and the UK to pressurise and threaten Chinese citizens who have taken refuge there. So to give one possible example, will this Global Security Initiative envisage mutual extradition arrangements whereby such citizens could be deported to their homeland? And would the Government of Guyana, supposedly committed to democratic principles sign onto that, perhaps because of the lazy assumption that in practice it would be unlikely that democratically inclined Chinese would seek refuge here?
And in return for concessions on the Global Security front, are the Chinese willing to offer large-scale facial recognition technology by which an incumbent government could exert greater control over its population, but which would also allow Beijing to keep track of possible exiles and what was going on in the country concerned. That, at least, is something this government here would appreciate.
China’s treatment of its minorities, namely the Tibetans and the Uighurs, is notorious, but now even the Mongolians, who have never presented any threat of violence to the Han-dominated state are finding their room for cultural manoeuvre restricted. Their right to teach in their own language in schools has now been withdrawn, and they have to use Mandarin.
Many of those whom Beijing wants to repatriate and ‘re-educate’ are from minority groups, and so what would Georgetown’s position be if within the context of the Global Security Initiative China required them to be deported back home? This country is, after all, a multicultural, multi-ethnic society which is committed to recognising group rights. Are we to recognise those rights here, but ignore them in relation to other peoples?
As for not interfering in the internal affairs of other states, there are all manner of complaints from Western societies about how the Chinese, like the Russians are attempting to affect democratic systems of one kind or another. Beijing has been accused of employing political, economic, and military means to project power, while it is not transparent about its aims or its strategy. Perhaps because of the source of these charges, Georgetown perhaps categorises them as biased.
It is true that Guyana is not in any position to confront China on human rights issues, unless theoretically as a member of a much larger grouping which included Global South states. However, it is in a position to stay clear of immediate danger and adopt a non-committal position. So once again, will Minister Benn please tell the nation what came out of the Forum he attended, what was the position of Guyana on the issues raised, and what, if anything, this country committed to?
