KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

BEI­JING, Chi­na—For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne is urg­ing the gov­ern­ment to in­ten­si­fy diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions, while his­to­ri­an Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh warns that World War III is no longer a mat­ter of if, but when.

Their con­cerns fol­lowed Chi­na’s 80th an­niver­sary com­mem­o­ra­tion of its vic­to­ry in the War of Re­sis­tance Against Japan­ese Ag­gres­sion, held in Bei­jing on Wednes­day.

Against the back­drop of ris­ing glob­al ten­sions, Chi­na marked the end of World War II with a dis­play of re­mem­brance, uni­ty, and mod­ern mil­i­tary might. Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping was flanked by Russ­ian pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and North Ko­rea’s Kim Jong-un in Tianan­men Square, un­der­scor­ing shift­ing al­liances and Bei­jing’s grow­ing geopo­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence.

For some an­a­lysts, it was al­so a sig­nal that Chi­na’s diplo­mat­ic reach could ri­val that of the US-led world or­der.

But what does this mean for T&T? Be­yond its his­tor­i­cal role as a strate­gic US mil­i­tary base and vi­tal oil hub dur­ing the war, the coun­try now faces a fa­mil­iar ques­tion: should it re­main aligned with Wash­ing­ton, or be­gin ex­plor­ing new part­ner­ships that could re­shape its fu­ture?

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Teelucks­ingh said T&T must brace it­self for glob­al in­sta­bil­i­ty.

“The world is on the brink of a world war… If a con­flict does oc­cur, mil­lions will die, and it could mean long-term ef­fects on us,” he warned.

While stress­ing the need for prepa­ra­tion, he cau­tioned that break­ing away from Wash­ing­ton could be cost­ly.

“We don’t have that glob­al clout to say who we are sup­port­ing or not. The Unit­ed States has a good re­la­tion­ship with us, not just in coun­ter­ing drug traf­fick­ing but for trade, and we can’t jeop­ar­dise that.”

He al­so urged pol­i­cy­mak­ers to keep the po­ten­tial fall­out in mind as the na­tion­al bud­get ap­proach­es.

“If a war erupts, the Mid­dle East will take a stance. Iran was in­vit­ed to that event (in Bei­jing), so we need to be look­ing at the price of oil and how these ten­sions may af­fect us.”

A call for bal­anced diplo­ma­cy

While both ex­perts agree T&T should main­tain neu­tral­i­ty, Dr Browne be­lieves the gov­ern­ment must ex­pand its diplo­mat­ic reach.

“What is re­quired of us is to in­ten­si­fy our re­la­tions in all di­rec­tions—with the Latin Amer­i­can re­gion, with Chi­na, with coun­tries in the Far East such as Sin­ga­pore and Malaysia, with Eu­rope as well. It can­not be one pur­sued at the ex­pense of oth­ers. This is where bal­anced for­eign pol­i­cy and wise diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment come in­to play. I’m not sure that is what is be­ing de­ployed in Port of Spain at this time,” he said.

Dr Browne added that ma­jor pow­ers are in­creas­ing­ly co­or­di­nat­ing to build a mul­ti-po­lar world, and T&T must pay at­ten­tion.

“Chi­na, In­dia, Brazil, and in some cas­es Rus­sia, are meet­ing more, en­gag­ing in sum­mits, and ex­plor­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties. Trinidad and To­ba­go must re­main guid­ed by its proven for­eign pol­i­cy prin­ci­ples, which have car­ried us through tur­bu­lent times.”

Guardian Me­dia sought com­ment from For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, but he has not yet re­spond­ed.

Dr Teelucks­ingh al­so ap­pealed to re­gion­al lead­ers and schol­ars, in­clud­ing UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly pres­i­dent Am­bas­sador Den­nis Fran­cis and Caribbean in­tel­lec­tu­als, to use their plat­forms to call for peace. Ef­forts to con­tact UWI vice-chan­cel­lor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les were un­suc­cess­ful.

From Bei­jing’s stage to Caribbean shores, one thing is clear: the world is shift­ing. For T&T, the press­ing ques­tion re­mains — which side of his­to­ry will we choose?