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The comments made on this forum about forging a closer relationship with China often make a great deal of sense, but the missing ingredient (what we keep forgetting) is our Caribbean politicians and business leaders and their myopic thinking.
Source of extract below: “Chinese Eggs Waiting to be Hatched,” by Sir Ronald Sanders in The Bajan Reporter, June 8, 2013;
(http://www.bajanreporter.com/2013/06...onald-sanders/ )
Both the Prime Minister of Barbados and the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Perry Christie, are reported to have rightly raised with President Xi the matter of Chinese tourism to the Caribbean. Both Barbados and the Bahamas are highly dependent on tourism, and both now suffer balance of trade deficits with China. Naturally, they are seeking to redress the imbalance as far as possible through the export earnings they would derive from Chinese tourists to their countries.
The achievement of regular tourists from China to the Caribbean is not easily accomplished. Apart from the need to create an awareness of the Caribbean in China and a desire to visit, the length of the journey and its cost, as well as training tourism workers to speak Chinese are factors that have to be overcome. These are also matters that need a master plan, best prepared on a regional basis by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.
Of course, there may be a problem for these two organisations even in considering a master plan for Chinese tourism to the Caribbean. It is a problem that was manifest at the meeting in Trinidad on June 2 between President Xi and the Caribbean leaders. Only 9 of the 14 independent CARICOM states were present at the meeting and, unlike an earlier encounter between CARICOM leaders and US Vice President, Joseph Biden, neither the Secretary-General of CARICOM nor any CARICOM Secretariat official was present at the meeting. This is because 5 of the CARICOM states have diplomatic relations with Taiwan and not China. A ‘one-China’ policy is a non-negotiable pillar of Chinese foreign policy.
This division in CARICOM has resulted in the group’s inability to devise a joint strategy for the relations of its member states with China. It is this same division, already paralyzing CARICOM action as a group, that would equally paralyze the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association whose membership includes the 5 countries that are tied to Taiwan.
Source of extract below: “Chinese Eggs Waiting to be Hatched,” by Sir Ronald Sanders in The Bajan Reporter, June 8, 2013;
(http://www.bajanreporter.com/2013/06...onald-sanders/ )
Both the Prime Minister of Barbados and the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Perry Christie, are reported to have rightly raised with President Xi the matter of Chinese tourism to the Caribbean. Both Barbados and the Bahamas are highly dependent on tourism, and both now suffer balance of trade deficits with China. Naturally, they are seeking to redress the imbalance as far as possible through the export earnings they would derive from Chinese tourists to their countries.
The achievement of regular tourists from China to the Caribbean is not easily accomplished. Apart from the need to create an awareness of the Caribbean in China and a desire to visit, the length of the journey and its cost, as well as training tourism workers to speak Chinese are factors that have to be overcome. These are also matters that need a master plan, best prepared on a regional basis by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.
Of course, there may be a problem for these two organisations even in considering a master plan for Chinese tourism to the Caribbean. It is a problem that was manifest at the meeting in Trinidad on June 2 between President Xi and the Caribbean leaders. Only 9 of the 14 independent CARICOM states were present at the meeting and, unlike an earlier encounter between CARICOM leaders and US Vice President, Joseph Biden, neither the Secretary-General of CARICOM nor any CARICOM Secretariat official was present at the meeting. This is because 5 of the CARICOM states have diplomatic relations with Taiwan and not China. A ‘one-China’ policy is a non-negotiable pillar of Chinese foreign policy.
This division in CARICOM has resulted in the group’s inability to devise a joint strategy for the relations of its member states with China. It is this same division, already paralyzing CARICOM action as a group, that would equally paralyze the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association whose membership includes the 5 countries that are tied to Taiwan.
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