British PM Rishi Sunak proves that his apparent cultural difference offers no political distinction or innovation!

THE GOLDEN CHALICE BELONGS TO THE BOLD!

By Professor Gilbert Morris:

Sunak’s supporters will say both that it’s early - give him a chance and he did well, appointing a cabinet and at his first Prime Minister’s question time.

But listen to him:

He simply parrots the old strategies and offered nothing newer than his ethnicity; which is itself a labyrinth of nationalities, race and ethnicities!

In his first Question Time he copied the tried and tired formula of taking the question and turning it around to attack the other side…then laughing in self-satisfaction.

Heavyweight do take such lazy, meaningless delights! [sic]

I spent a good deal of my career, trying to show elected governments that they must be bold from the first day!

If you have 5 year election cycles…you must hit pay dirt immediately with something that gives the feel of a new country with new possibilities.

Merely performing routine tasks correctly - as every previous leader has - is not a game changer!

In a 5 year cycle, you have 18 months to get a policy done, if you announce it on the first day!

If you miss that first 18 months, events out of your control - natural disasters, wars, etc. ruins plans…and you’re left making excuses!

Already, his statement on Fiscal Strategy is delayed by 15 days! As Ca Newry would say “Sigh”!

Sunak has banned fracking. That’s good! But why is it not part of a broader strategy?

If he’d banned fracking, removed all transactional taxes for small businesses and instead of sucking up to Biden - who couldn’t remember his name on their first phone call - he should have announced a global coalition of the Commonwealth, Germany, China and the 30 US Congressional group proposing a Russia-Ukraine Peace Pact.

That’s how you come out of the box as a player on day one!

I mentioned these initiatives specifically because they are within his immediate grasp. When you have a change of leader during the life of a parliament, your mandate is already active. And in the case of peace agreement…you don’t just celebrate your India ties, you leverage it because Prime Minister Modi of India would LOVE nothing more than partnering with an Indian led Britain to solve a problem created by Europe!

Moreover India is essential to the conflict in Ukraine as both Russia and the US are trying to keep India on-side; whilst China would welcome every opportunity to work with India to solve their problems. India China and Russia would also have given him Brazil and Indonesia. He’d have gotten African through the Commonwealth. Therefore, such a peace initiative would involve nearly 5 billion people on earth and immediately he would be a global player beyond Britain’s resource capacity!

The point is Britain is reeling from high energy prices: ending the conflict is the surest way to bring down energy prices in the medium to long term!

But alas…he opted for the empty - eager-to-please lackey approach; proving that his apparent cultural difference offers no political distinction or innovation!

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Cuba reaffirms its strict adherence to the “one China” principle and the acknowledgement of Taiwan as an inalienable part of the territory of that country

Cuba reaffirms its unreserved support to the “one China” principle

From Granma

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba states its firm rejection to the actions aimed at harming the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China; condemns interference in its internal affairs, and emphasizes its concern over the increasing tensions and further deterioration of the situation concerning Taiwan as a direct result of the aggressive policy and high military presence of the United States and its allies in the Taiwan Strait, military contacts and regular sale of weapons, actions all that undermine peace and international and regional peace.      

New provocations, disguised as official contacts or high-level visits deliberately pose further dangers.

Cuba reaffirms its strict adherence to the “one China” principle and the acknowledgement of Taiwan as an inalienable part of the territory of that country.   

The United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution 2758 adopted on October 25, 1971, recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the true and sole legitimate representative of the Chinese people.  Today, it has diplomatic relations with 181 countries based on the acknowledgement of the “one-China” principle.    

The purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and International Law must be respected without selectivity or double standards.

China’s key role as a factor for stability and international balance cannot be disregarded, nor the relevance of its cooperation with developing countries with no political conditions attached.

Havana, August 2, 2022

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Yuan Guisen, Chinese Ambassador to The Bahamas on China-Bahamas relations

Onward together to a better future for China-Bahamas relations

By YUAN GUISEN

“Bosom friends make distance disappear,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping to the president of Trinidad and Tobago during his visit to Latin America and the Caribbean last year. In July, President Xi concluded a successful visit to Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba with fruitful results for further ties, a gesture of China’s sincerity and the high value China places on its relations with Latin America and the Caribbean.

During his visit, President Xi attended a China-Latin America and the Caribbean Summit and delivered a keynote speech titled Striving to build a hand-in-hand community of common destiny. His address announced China's proposals and measures for promoting China-Latin America cooperation. It proposed to build a Five-in-One new pattern of China-Latin America and the Caribbean relations: sincerely trust each other in politics; cooperate with each other for a win-win outcome in terms of economy and trade; learn from each other in people-to-people and cultural exchanges; closely cooperate with each other in international affairs; and promote each other in overall cooperation and bilateral relations, so as to forge a hand-in-hand community of common destiny.

China firmly believes that the world tide flows in its mighty power. The cooperation between China and Latin American countries and the Caribbean states serves the practical and long-term interests of both sides. China proposes to jointly build a new "1 + 3 + 6" cooperation framework:

• "1" means "one plan", referring to the establishment of the China-Latin American Countries and Caribbean States Cooperation Plan (2015-2019) with the aim of achieving inclusive growth and sustainable development.

• "3" means "three engines", referring to promoting the comprehensive development of China-Latin America practical cooperation with trade, investment and financial cooperation as the impetus, striving to promote China-Latin America trade to scale up to US$500 billion and the investment stock in Latin America up to $250 billion within 10 years and promote the expansion of local currency settlement and currency swap in bilateral trade.

• "6" means "six fields", referring to boosting China-Latin America industry connections with energy and resources, infrastructure construction, agriculture, manufacturing, scientific and technological innovation, and information technologies as cooperation priorities.

State-to-state relations thrive when there is friendship between the peoples. And such friendship grows out of close interactions between the peoples.

Over the next five years, China will provide Latin American and Caribbean countries with 6,000 government scholarships, 6,000 training opportunities in China and 400 positions of in-house studying for master’s degrees.

China will also invite 1,000 political party leaders from Latin American and Caribbean countries to visit China and launch the Future Bridge training program for 1,000 Chinese and Latin American youth leaders in 2015. China proposes to set the year 2016 as China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1997,

China-Bahamas bilateral relations have remained on a track of steady development, with deepening cooperation in all fields. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Perry Christie reached an important consensus on furthering our ties during the meeting in Trinidad and Tobago last year. A mutual visa exemption agreement in effect since this February has vastly facilitated exchange between our two peoples. In early May, a Chinese medical team visited The Bahamas and performed free cataract surgeries on 101 Bahamian patients, whose sight was improved or recovered.

This year, three-dozen Bahamian officials have been invited to China for short-term training programs sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. Nine excellent Bahamian students were granted Chinese government scholarships to study in China in the coming years.

There is an old saying in China, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What our bilateral relations have achieved up to today is the sum of numerous single steps made by our two governments and peoples.

Through the new measures and initiatives for developing relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, our bilateral relations will be injected with new momentum that will usher in a new era.

Six decades ago, leaders of China, India and Myanmar initiated the Five Principles, including mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.

Sixty years on, China firmly observed and will observe the five principles of peaceful coexistence. China will firmly pursue peaceful development and a win-win strategy of opening-up, which will create new opportunities and space for the development around the world.

In spite of the differences in geographical location, territorial area, per capital GDP and culture between our two nations, we have enormous potential for cooperation. The Bahamas has become an important partner of China in Caribbean region.

Since my assumption of office over a half year ago, I have experienced the friendship between our two peoples and the enthusiasm of Bahamians to develop relations with China.

The Chinese government would like to make every effort to enhance our ties in various spheres based on the Five Principles. We will seek to expand our common interests and ensure our two peoples benefit from the strengthening of our bilateral relations. We firmly believe that it’s a good time now for us to work together onward to a better future of our relations.

• Yuan Guisen, Chinese Ambassador to The Bahamas

September 13, 2014

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Chinese Ambassador to The Bahamas - Hu Shan on China’s economic work in 2012

China’s economic work in 2012

Making progress while maintaining stability

By Hu Shan
Chinese Ambassador to The Bahamas

In recent months, many Bahamian friends have kept asking me about the future development situation of China’s economy, expecting me to introduce more of China’s economic policy through local media.  It so happened that China set the main tasks for its 2012 economic work last December, the tone of which was set as making progress while maintaining stability.   Following are some of the main contents.

China’s Central Economic Work Conference, concluded in Beijing on December 10, 2011, made an in-depth analysis on the major issues China must properly handle in 2012 and the ensuing period, and clearly pointed out the overall requirements, general guiding principles and main tasks of China’s economic work in 2012.  Concrete arrangements were laid out.

The conference holds the view that the world economy slowed down, the growth rate of international trade dropped, the international financial market intensively fluctuated, and risks of all sorts increased obviously in the past months in 2011.

Looking ahead, the overall situation of the world economy in 2012 will still be extremely complicated.  The instability and uncertainty of the world economy recovery is increasing.  China should pay more attention to both domestic and international situations, and figure out a due plan accordingly.  It should strengthen the awareness of risks and develop a full understanding of the challenges and opportunities brought by the international financial crisis.  From the perspectives of opening-up and reform as well as socialist construction of modernization, China should strengthen strategic planning and increase the capability of reaction by making best use of its advantages and bypassing its disadvantages.  It should continue to increase its comprehensive strength and international competence through exploiting favorable conditions while avoiding unfavorable ones.

China must play particularly well the basic work tone of maintaining stability while making progress when promoting its economic and social development in 2012.  ‘Stability’ means to maintain basically stable macroeconomic policies, relatively fast economic growth, stable consumer prices and social stability.  ‘Progress’ means to make new advances in transforming the economic development model, new breakthroughs in deepening reform and opening up and new achievements in improving people’s livelihood by seizing this strategically important development period for China’s development and putting it to good use.

The conference points out, under the circumstances of a complicated and rapidly changing international political and economic situation as well as the new situation and change in domestic economic development, China must continuously stick to the main theme of scientific development and the main policy direction of expediting transformation of its economic development model.  It must firmly keep the basic strategic point by expanding domestic demand, putting its emphasis on safeguarding and improving the life standards of the people, on accelerating the development of service sectors and on raising the proportion of the medium-income class.

China must firmly maintain the solid foundation of developing real economy.  The Chinese people must work hard to create an earnest and down-to-earth social atmosphere and get rich through diligent labor.  China must firmly stick to the dynamics of speeding up reform and renovation by seizing good opportunities to make some breakthroughs in leading fields and key segments.

The Chinese people should make special efforts to improve their abilities of initial innovation and continue to increase the abilities of epitomizing innovation and recreation through importing, absorbing and digesting foreign technologies.

They must firmly keep in mind the fundamental purpose of safeguarding and improving people’s livelihoods by allocating more financial budget, and earnestly carrying out some big and important livelihood-related events.  In doing so, they must lay stress on raising the inclusiveness of development.

The conference points out, 2011 was the first year of the 12th Five-Year period and the Chinese government and people implemented to the letter the 12th Five-Year Plan.  China enhanced and improved macroeconomic control and correctly handled the relations among stable and relatively fast economic development, economic structure adjustment and stagnation management.

China put more emphasis on solving prominent issues, consolidating and expanding its achievements in coping with international financial crisis.  China also made more efforts to enforce the orderly economic transformation from policy-stimulating to independent growth.  China’s national economy kept on moving towards the expected direction of macro-control, with a good momentum of relatively fast growth, stable price tendency, good returns, and improvement of people’s livelihoods.

In general, in 2011, China made new progress in socialist development in the fields of economy, politics, culture, society, conservation and party affairs, setting a favorable beginning for the 12th five-year period.

Given the extremely complicated domestic and international situations, no small effort was expended in obtaining such achievements.  That was the outcome of the dedication and hard work of the whole party and the whole nation in unity.  That was also the outcome of the unswerving efforts and tenacious striving of all the local governments and people from all walks of life.

The conference emphasizes that it must be consciously seen that, while the achievements were fully affirmed, currently the conflicts of interests and problems in China’s economic development remain prominent, say imbalanced, uncoordinated unharmonized development.

Moreover, there co-exists the heavy pressure of the decline in economic growth and the rising of commodity prices.  Some enterprises have difficulties in their production and management; the situation of energy conservation and emission reduction is still very severe; and there are potential risks that allow no negligence in the financial sector.

So the Chinese people must be sober-minded.  They should strengthen risk assessment, make contingency plans and take timely measures to effectively defuse all kinds of risks.

The conference clearly set the main tasks of China’s economic work for 2012.  China should:

1. Continue to strengthen and improve macroeconomic adjustment and control, and promote the economy to gain stable and relatively fast growth.

2. Be unremittingly committed to the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and secure the supply of agricultural products.

3. Accelerate economic structural adjustment, and promote independent and coordinated economic development.  First, it should make great efforts to expand domestic demand.  Second, it should forcefully push forward the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure.  Third, it should put more efforts on energy conservation and emission reduction.  Fourth, it should spare no efforts to promote regional coordinated development.

4. Deepen reform in major areas and key segments, and uplift the level of opening to the outside world.

5. Make full efforts to safeguard and improve people’s livelihoods, strengthen and innovate social management.

The conference points out, in order to do a good job in the economic work in 2012, China must stick to the concept of overall planning and all-round considerations, and earnestly keep a good balance between objectives and tasks to achieve the overall objective of making progress while maintaining stability.

The Chinese government should better combine stable growth, price control, structure adjustment, livelihood improvement, reform implementation and harmony promotion.

‘Stable growth’ means to boost domestic demand while stabilizing foreign demand, to exert itself to overcome the impact brought about by all sorts of unstable and uncertain factors, promptly solve trendy and tendentious problems, and to keep stable economic growth.

‘Price control’ means to continue taking comprehensive measures to keep the general price level basically stable and prevent the price tendency from rebounding.

‘Structure adjustment’ means to bring the main theme into bold relief, permeate the main policy into the whole work, combine support and control accordingly, increase both quality and quantity of economic growth, and to strengthen economic coordination and sustainability.

‘Livelihood improvement’ means to place safeguarding and improving of livelihoods on a more outstanding position, concentrate efforts to solve urgent issues, and to do some tangible things that can be seen by the people and can benefit the people.

‘Reform implementation’ means to push forward reform with greater commitment and efforts, concentrate all efforts to solve systematic and structural contradictory problems that directly impact the long-term healthy economic development, obtain new breakthroughs in major areas and key links, and promote reform, development and harmony through opening-up.

‘Harmony promotion’ means to correctly handle the relations among reform, development and stability, actively and efficiently defuse all kinds of potential conflicts and risks, and promote social harmony and stability.

Jan 19, 2012

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