KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

On­ly peace can bring pros­per­i­ty and de­vel­op­ment, ac­cord­ing to new­ly ap­point­ed Chi­nese Am­bas­sador to T&T, Ren Yang­pan.

He made the com­ments dur­ing his first of­fi­cial ad­dress as am­bas­sador at a re­cep­tion com­mem­o­rat­ing the 80th An­niver­sary of Vic­to­ry Day (V-Day) in Chi­na.

“In­sta­bil­i­ty and un­cer­tain­ty are cast­ing shad­ows over our world,” Am­bas­sador Yang­pan said.

“We are en­ter­ing a new pe­ri­od of tur­bu­lence and trans­for­ma­tion, as in­ter­na­tion­al rules and or­der come un­der chal­lenge. Pre­serv­ing peace and sta­bil­i­ty has be­come one of the great­est re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of our time.”

His re­marks came in the wake of a late-night so­cial me­dia out­burst by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, di­rect­ed at Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping: “Please give my warmest re­gards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you con­spire against the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.”

On Wednes­day, Chi­na staged a mas­sive mil­i­tary pa­rade in cen­tral Bei­jing to mark the his­toric day, re­it­er­at­ing the coun­try’s com­mit­ment to peace­ful de­vel­op­ment in a world still be­set by tur­bu­lence and un­cer­tain­ty.

Stand­ing be­side Pres­i­dent Xi on the Tian’an­men Ros­trum were Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, North Ko­re­an leader Kim Jong Un, and more than 20 oth­er for­eign heads of state.

Just days ear­li­er, a video clip show­ing Xi Jin­ping, In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di, and Vladimir Putin shar­ing a laugh in Tian­jin had gone vi­ral. The pho­to was cap­tured dur­ing the Shang­hai Co­op­er­a­tion Or­gan­i­sa­tion (SCO) sum­mit.

Am­bas­sador Yang­pan un­der­scored that Chi­na is the sec­ond-largest con­trib­u­tor to UN peace­keep­ing ef­forts and the largest troop con­trib­u­tor among the per­ma­nent mem­bers of the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“We ac­tive­ly work for po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tions to hotspot is­sues such as the Ukraine cri­sis and the Pales­tin­ian-Is­raeli con­flict, and have re­cent­ly ini­ti­at­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Me­di­a­tion to­geth­er with like-mind­ed coun­tries,” he said.

“No mat­ter how the in­ter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion evolves, Chi­na will al­ways stand on the side of peace and make its con­tri­bu­tions to main­tain­ing glob­al sta­bil­i­ty.”

He warned that mil­i­tary al­liances and bloc con­fronta­tions can­not pro­vide re­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“The world should not be di­vid­ed, but unit­ed. The in­ter­na­tion­al or­der should not be over­turned, but pre­served,” he added.

“Chi­na will con­tin­ue to be a force for uni­ty, cham­pi­oning the shared val­ues of hu­man­i­ty, deep­en­ing ex­changes and mu­tu­al learn­ing with oth­er na­tions, and work­ing to­geth­er to ad­vance hu­man progress and bring peo­ples clos­er to­geth­er.”

Yang­pan al­so paid trib­ute to T&T’s role dur­ing World War II.

“As an im­por­tant Al­lied lo­gis­tics base, it made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the vic­to­ry. It was al­so among the first Caribbean na­tions to achieve in­de­pen­dence in the post-war era, and has long spo­ken out on be­half of those who suf­fered from colo­nial­ism,” he not­ed.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go ac­tive­ly en­gages in in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion un­der the UN frame­work and has been a strong ad­vo­cate for ‘Glob­al South’ col­lab­o­ra­tion. As a found­ing mem­ber of Cari­com, it has played a lead­ing role in ad­vanc­ing re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

“Chi­na is ready to work hand-in-hand with Trinidad and To­ba­go to ad­vance high-qual­i­ty Belt and Road co­op­er­a­tion, to broad­en and deep­en prac­ti­cal en­gage­ment in trade, cul­ture, ecol­o­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, new en­er­gy, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, and oth­er fields, and to build an even clos­er com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture be­tween our two coun­tries.”

On Sep­tem­ber 5, Yang­pan for­mal­ly pre­sent­ed his cre­den­tials as Am­bas­sador-des­ig­nate of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo. The cer­e­mo­ny marked the of­fi­cial be­gin­ning of his tenure as Chi­nese Am­bas­sador to T&T.