The visit of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last Thursday underlines the growing visibility of Guyana in the world at large, and particularly in the region. At the base of this recognition is the eleven billion barrels (and counting) of oil that lies off our coast, from which we would daily be extracting and shipping 1 million barrels of our sweet, light crude that exemplifies the Brent standard. We will now be the country with the largest per capita oil production in the world, and also the fastest growing economy. Guyanese must appreciate this happy circumstance, and begin to act in accordance with the responsibility that such visibility engenders.
Secty Rubio alluded to one of our responsibilities, along with Suriname: that we have, as a member of Caricom, to assist in its energy requirements. We cannot forget — when T&T was the sole oil producer in the 1970s-1980s, and oil prices skyrocketed in the wake of the formation of OPEC — the facilitation of our oil supplies. Within a wider context in the hemisphere and in the world, we have to also be cognizant of the changing international order, in which the US, as the sole superpower left standing after the collapse of the USSR, is now being challenged by China.
This rivalry came to the fore during Secty Rubio’s visit, when he reiterated the US’ strong support for us in the Venezuela border controversy. Venezuelan President Maduro has used this fiction to wage a vicious hybrid war against us, which recently escalated into a physical threat to an Exxon FPSO by a Venezuelan warship that violated our EEZ. Against the background of its USS Normandy – a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile vessel armed with naval guns and anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine missiles, plus other weapons – conducting exercises with our GDF patrol vessel Shadoud in our EEZ, Secty Rubio announced the US position if Maduro attacks us. “It would be a very bad day for the Venezuelan regime if they were to attack Guyana or attack ExxonMobil or anything like it…it would not end well,” Rubio declared at a joint press conference with Pres Ali, his tone leaving little room for misinterpretation, especially when he took pains to invoke the might and reach of the US Navy.
The President then responded: “The U.S. is a great friend of ours. The U.S. has made it very clear that they are ready to stand by us in our development, in our economic expansion, in our security and in our defence. And I will say very boldly that such friends must have some different and preferential treatment, because a friend who will defend me when I need a friend to defend me must be a friend that enjoys some special place in our heart and in our country; that will be the case.”
China unfortunately took umbrage at this, and immediately issued a terse statement: “China has always “Put China-Guyana Friendship First”. We honour our commitment with concrete actions. As a matter of fact, China has participated fully at the biggest economic and social transformation in the history of Guyana. Facts and figures speak louder than anything else”.
But the Chinese response missed the context and gravamen of Pres Ali’s statement – our security and defence that is threatened by Maduro and Venezuela with their serial assaults to annex Essequibo. Such assaults ultimately threaten any “economic and social transformation” in which China might have played a role in providing loans for projects executed by Chinese companies that use a preponderant Chinese work force and materials. In September 2023, even as Venezuela was once again rattling sabres on our western borders by proposing to hold a referendum to annex Essequibo, China upgraded their relations with that country into the highest possible “all-weather strategic partnership”. On March 1, when the Venezuelan Navy corvette invaded our EEZ and threatened the FPSO Lisa Destiny, China was silent even though CNOOC, which it owns, has a 25% stake in the operating condominium.
Will China state its response if Venezuela attacks us, since it claims it has “Put China-Guyana Friendship First”?
