by Marie-Therese Belisle Nweke

Sunday, September 22, 2024

In recent exchanges about Belize’s support for Taiwan, Moses Michael Levi Barrow, otherwise known by his rapper name, “Shyne”, who is the Opposition UDP’s current leader, made a number of key observations which do make a lot of sense. At times, he does win my admiration because he is sharp and brave, and then whittles it away with some dumb asides. Barrow needs to read more and cultivate a network of deep thinkers, knowledgeable in history, global economy, politics and cultures, who can truly educate him.

Actually, there are just 11 nations, plus the Vatican City State in Italy, which maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan out of 193 nations in the world. Still, Taiwan maintains powerful, unofficial diplomatic relations with 59 UN member states, as well as one self-declared state. This is achieved through economic and cultural representative offices. This nation, although it is regarded as a “renegade province” by Mainland China, in 2021 had the 33rd largest diplomatic network in the world with 110 offices. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China, or Mainland China, has diplomatic relations with almost every UN member, and appropriated Taiwan’s seat in the UN Security Council. Mainland China also has the second largest economy in the world after the US. Both countries dominate 43 percent of the global economy.

Mainland China’s successful but hardnosed and acrimonious strategy of isolating Taiwan, has, however, created a blowback by uniting US allies, including Australia, the UK and Japan, in their response, which makes it more difficult for Mainland China to attain its geostrategic objectives. What helps Taiwan is that, although it was a military dictatorship for several decades, and martial law was imposed between 1949 and 1987 right through the 1990s, Taiwan has now become a democracy, holding its first direct presidential elections in 1996. It can even be described as a sturdy democracy, and unlike Mainland China it has a free press, an independent judiciary, and definitely no “Big Brother” like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) keeping a relentless check on every single thing that moves, breathes or exists. Taiwan ranks 31st of 176 countries and territories in the Transparency International’s Corruption Index.

Taiwan is also the world’s 16th largest economy, and a major trading nation with nearly $1 trillion in annual trade. And, 25% of this is actually with Mainland China. It has a population of 23 million against Mainland China’s almost two billion. Taiwan, therefore, is key to the world’s economy—make no mistake about it. Because, if Mainland China were to institute a blockade on it in its desire to bring Taiwan to its heels and force reunification, world trade would be completely disrupted, with losses in revenue amounting to trillions of dollars. What is happening now economically as a result of the Ukraine-Russia war is child’s play, compared to what would happen should the two Chinas square up to muscle it out, with the “ole, faas, you-know-who” jumping in.

Taiwan accounts for 92 percent of the world’s advanced logic chips — 10 nanometers and smaller. It is a given that semi-conductors are the oil of today’s knowledge economy. Taiwan accounts for about 55% of the world chip fabrication. Credible accounts (such as those from the Rhodium Group) indicate that Taiwan produces 35% of the world’s autos and 70% of its smartphones. It also dominates the production of chips for personal computers and servers. Taiwan’s chips are essential to laptops, tablets, smartphones, autos, medical devices and various critical infrastructure. 

Yet, in Belize’s loyal 30-year-old support for this truly technologically savvy and innovative nation, its relationship with Belize has definitely not been of any great use in helping Belize transform to a modern, technological and self-reliant state. Taiwan’s scholarships are all well and good; we even got many for years even from the British and the Canadians, among the donors.

Evan X Hyde, the AMANDALA’s publisher, among many other things, got one from the rich and beneficent Americans in the mid-1960s to one of America’s Ivy League colleges. And, undoubtedly, it was assumed Hyde would remain in the US, and with his excellent grades do postgrad work, obtain a doctorate, become an American citizen, possibly work for the State Department and be sent as an ambassador to either an African nation or Haiti, or become a professor in another Ivy League college, write books, plays and poetry which their big publishing houses would publish, or work for the NY Times, the Wall St. Journal, the Washington Post or the LA Times, or in book publishing.

Instead what did Evan X do? Returned to dead-water Belize, where he incited a lot of the youths, particularly its Creole majority, to THINK and QUESTION whom they really were, their history, identity and role not just in Belize, but in the wider world. He even created self-help initiatives which his various enemies killed. But Evan X went beyond culture, self-help and philosophy to pinpoint the youths’ political role. This was blasphemy, not only to Uncle Sam who had nurtured this “viper”, but the gullible sell-outs on both sides of the political spectrum in Belize, whose ire was truly great. This earned him eternal punishment—a kind of castration, to this day!

In my view, most Belize people, even those close to him, who actually went to “school”, just do not understand the game, and pass it all off now as “ole yeriso”, that had no dangerous repercussions for Belize. Why do you think most Belize watchers regard us as living in a fool’s paradise, replete with an artificial bonhomie and feel good jazz talk, while the sell-out is everywhere? It’s actually called “packaging”. This September is the month of nationwide celebrations in Belize, and it was at once happy, but in a sense very sobering for those recognizing the dark reality lying beneath all the “packaging”. Why do you think that irrespective of which party comes to power in Belize when the pendulum swings, they both behave exactly alike when they are in power, as if joined at the hip? Even their wilderness years are uncannily similar, and are replete with infighting and power struggles, until eureka.

Indeed, some of us have a lot to answer for; and my only consolation as I revisit the tubes of the past is that the sins of the fathers and mothers traverse down to even the fourth and fifth generation. As for those who fortuitously had, or have, no children, they have countless relatives, such as nephews and nieces. Nations also pay for their sins. Karma is real! So much for scholarships and what they can do for the donor and the donee.

Belize also obtained other Taiwanese largesse via donations of a few million dollars to Belizean NGOs alleged to be connected to politically exposed persons, a grant for the renovation of, for example, the National Assembly building for under a million US dollars, and other lateral gifts, which we bow and curtsy over, as well as “show teeth”. But these are reminiscent of old style, paternalistic colonialism. This is where “the natives” are obsequiously grateful for the crumbs falling from the table, but are never invited to eat from the main course, or even the side dishes. “Ewo” Belize!

Whether Belize will gain far more tangibly by switching to Mainland China is a question that’s up in the air. The Chinese are people who play a long, long game. Even Napoleon Bonaparte realized this from way back then. I have seen with my own “coro-coro eye” their footprints on the African continent. These are the new railways, modern bridges, sea ports, airports, roads, and other physical infrastructure, (built by mainly Chinese workers, thus preventing Africans from acquiring new skills), loan agreements written only in Mandarin, and one-sided dividends, obscured, but well-stacked on the Chinese end. 

I also see many Chinese economic migrants in African countries, who are unemployable at home due to the current downturn in China’s economy. The West, namely the US and Europe, is now setting up high tariffs on China’s ballooning exports, as China’s domestic purchasing power has shrunken, with China desperately needing to offload its products abroad. Many of these Chinese hustlers are in various African countries illegally mining Africa’s huge mineral resources. Some Chinese companies enter into agreements with some sub-national African governments, and when they fall out, sue them in foreign courts; and in the end are able to seize choice landed property in those foreign jurisdictions, and even aircraft and money owned by the national government, and not the sub-national government they had sued. A growing number of Chinese immigrants now undercut African indigenous agricultural enterprises and livestock industries with Chinese state loans given to them. They then solely export these products, to the extent that local prices skyrocket due to scarcity. One may well ask why these African governments generally allow themselves to be conned by foreigners, while their nations and people are endemic victims of a cycle of growth without development. We can redirect this question to every Belizean government since 1964 when self-government was introduced to Belize.

I will not discuss in detail Chinese racism and exceptionalism, as well as attempts to set up their own police stations in other people’s countries, ostensibly to protect their nationals. But when any nation hosts a significantly large Chinese population flow, that is when a number of degenerative tendencies are openly manifested.

In my view, national leaders from the Global South who truly desire and aspire for the very best for their people and meaningful progress for their nations, need to sup with both Chinas using a very, very, very long spoon. They must definitely ask God to add more eyes to the two He initially gave them. That’s if, they should even sup with the Chinese, particularly after having been dealt with so mercilessly by the West. By the way, I have been to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China. And, I did use my eyes while there, and at times even wished I had more.

Here is a list of nations and entities recognizing the Taipei government of Taiwan: 1. Paraguay; 2. Guatemala; 3. Belize; 4. St. Lucia; 5. St. Kitts & Nevis; 6. St. Vincent & the Grenadines; 7. Haiti; 8. Palau; 9. Tuvalu; 10. Marshall Islands; 11. Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland); 12. The Vatican City State (in Italy).