A Contemporary Assessment of Sino-Guyanese Relations in the Belt and Road Era

Abstract

By examining the Sino-Guyanese relationship and China’s parastatal involvement in Guyana, this paper seeks to demonstrate that the former’s potential for upending conventional geopolitical realities in Latin America and the Caribbean are overstated. As Western public concern regarding the perils of China to the international order grows, the case of Guyana draws attention to China’s still deepening integration within the neoliberal global economy. Guyana’s historic relationship with China, geostrategic location as a Belt and Road Initiative partner country, and the recent emergence of the Guyana Basin as an energy nexus, suggest its importance as a bellwether of China’s presence in the region. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, assumptions regarding China’s re-emergence in the global order are being overturned frequently. Though it remains unclear what impact contemporary socio-economic, political, or ecological instabilities will have on a realignment of the incumbent international system, the need for nuanced and novel approaches for assessing the agency of a risen China is unequivocal.

Keywords: China, Guyana, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Parastatal Corporations, Oil/Energy Transnationals