The Chi­nese ab­bre­vi­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is “Te Duo” (pinyin), which means “Land of Abun­dance”.

“T&T has long en­joyed an abun­dance of nat­ur­al re­sources, eco­nom­ic vi­tal­i­ty, hu­man re­sources, and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty. Even in the face of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, T&T dis­plays an abun­dance of gov­ern­men­tal stew­ard­ship, cit­i­zen fra­ter­ni­ty, eco­nom­ic re­silience, and in­ter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, as vivid­ly demon­strat­ed by the joint an­ti-COVID-19 ef­forts of our two coun­tries,” Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na to T&T Fang Qiu stat­ed.

Fang Qiu as­sumed his role as the 14th Am­bas­sador of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go last year.

The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment to help T&T in its COVID fight and has promised to do­nate 100,000 Sinopharm vac­cines to this coun­try.

This promised do­na­tion fol­lowed a phone call from the Pres­i­dent of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, Xi Jin­ping to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on March 16.

But this is just the lat­est in the on­go­ing bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries.

This year makes it 47 years since Chi­na and T&T have es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic ties. The diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries start­ed on June 20, 1974.

“The friend­ship be­tween Chi­na and Trinidad and To­ba­go has a long his­to­ry. The two coun­tries are good friends and good broth­ers that trust each oth­er,” Fang Qiu said.

In 1974 T&T’s first prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams vis­it­ed Chi­na and in 2013 Chi­na’s Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping paid a state vis­it to T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to Fang Qiu, T&T is the “eco­nom­ic lo­co­mo­tive in the Caribbean re­gion” and plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in re­gion­al af­fairs.

Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping pro­posed the Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive (BRI) and the con­cept of an in­ter­con­nect­ed glob­al com­mu­ni­ty.

To date, 136 coun­tries and 30 in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions have joined the BRI.

T&T be­came the first Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean coun­try to sign on to the BRI on May 14 2018 dur­ing the of­fi­cial vis­it of Dr Kei­th Row­ley to Chi­na.

Chi­na-T&T bi­lat­er­al trade is the first to top US$1 bil­lion in the re­gion.

Chi­nese in­vest­ments and en­ter­pris­es have gained a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence here and con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal in­dus­tries.

Bi­lat­er­al ex­changes in cul­ture, ed­u­ca­tion, tourism, sports and me­dia have been deep­ened and ex­pand­ed.

Or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Con­fu­cius In­sti­tute at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus and ac­tiv­i­ties like drag­on boat rac­ing and an­nu­al Chi­nese Spring Fes­ti­val cel­e­bra­tions held by the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty ig­nite lo­cal en­thu­si­asm for Chi­nese cul­ture.

A por­tion of Char­lotte Street in Port-of-Spain has al­so been named Chi­na­town in ho­n­our of the Chi­nese pres­ence here.

In his re­marks in Feb­ru­ary, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne stat­ed, “the stat­uesque arch­es, re­gal li­ons and lanterns are strik­ing­ly sym­bol­ic of the ties bind­ing T&T and Chi­na. Chi­na­town is one of the planned fruits of part­ner­ship be­tween PoS and Shang­hai.”

Fang Qiu said 2021 is a brand new start for the two coun­tries.

The am­bas­sador said he was will­ing to work with T&T to pro­mote fur­ther de­vel­op­ment be­tween the two coun­tries and “bring more tan­gi­ble fruits.”

Fang Qiu said both Chi­na and T&T are en­ter­ing new stages of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, cre­at­ing prospects of a shared fu­ture of “Abun­dance”.

Fang Qiu said there is an “abun­dance of pub­lic health. Chi­na and T&T have been fight­ing in broth­er­hood against COVID-19, sup­port­ing each oth­er in morale and ma­te­ri­als. I felt very proud that Chi­nese com­pa­nies have done their part in con­struct­ing and up­grad­ing the Cou­va and Ari­ma hos­pi­tals, pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty health­care fa­cil­i­ties to Tri­nis when the pan­dem­ic start­ed to hit their shores. Chi­na has joined the CO­V­AX fa­cil­i­ty, through which we will share vac­cines with all the world, and de­vel­op­ing coun­tries in par­tic­u­lar,” he stat­ed.

The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has sent sev­er­al med­ical teams over the past years to car­ry out ex­changes here.

Chi­na has al­so been a lead­ing pro­duc­er of health-re­lat­ed tech­nol­o­gy such as re­mote di­ag­no­sis, med­ical ro­bots, and oth­er in­no­va­tions. As pas­sen­gers in the same boat, Chi­na and T&T should come to­geth­er to build a com­mon com­mu­ni­ty with re­li­able pub­lic health for all our cit­i­zens.

There is al­so an “abun­dance of eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties”, Fang Qiu said.

Chi­na has a pop­u­la­tion of 1.4 bil­lion and a mid­dle-in­come group of more than 400 mil­lion.

To­tal im­ports in­to Chi­na are es­ti­mat­ed to top US$22 tril­lion in the com­ing decade.

Fang Qiu said as Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping em­pha­sised at the 3rd Chi­na In­ter­na­tion­al Im­port Ex­po, “Our aim is to turn the Chi­na mar­ket in­to a mar­ket for the world, a mar­ket shared by all, and a mar­ket ac­ces­si­ble to all.”

“Chi­na’s for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment flow in 2019, which is ranked sec­ond in the world, has been in­ject­ing valu­able stim­u­lus in­to the mori­bund world econ­o­my. The mas­sive do­mes­tic mar­ket and for­eign in­vest­ment from Chi­na will con­tin­ue to un­leash enor­mous eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties for Chi­na-T&T co­op­er­a­tion,” he stat­ed.

Fang Qiu said there is an “Abun­dance of qual­i­ty de­vel­op­ment”.

Chi­na will con­tin­ue to fo­cus on in­no­v­a­tive, co­or­di­nat­ed, green, open, and shared de­vel­op­ment, mesh­ing with T&T’s na­tion­al vi­sion of cre­ativ­i­ty, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“It is our great­est dream to ex­plore co-op­er­a­tion in e-com­merce, e-gov­er­nance, e-ed­u­ca­tion, e-health, eco-tourism and eco-agri­cul­ture based on game-chang­ing techs like 5G, AI, and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly in­no­va­tions. These are the dri­ving forces shap­ing our fu­ture,” he stat­ed.

He said there is al­so an “abun­dance of com­mon pros­per­i­ty.”

“Do­mes­ti­cal­ly, Chi­na has con­tin­u­ous­ly up­held the peo­ple-cen­tred phi­los­o­phy of de­vel­op­ment and stayed true to our orig­i­nal as­pi­ra­tion to pur­sue hap­pi­ness for our cit­i­zens, re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the na­tion, and har­mo­ny in the world,” he stat­ed.

He said to this end, Chi­na is ac­tive­ly build­ing a net­work of in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships as it works to­ward a shared fu­ture for all.

“I have dis­cov­ered the same spir­it in the na­tion­al mot­to of T&T —‘To­geth­er we as­pire, to­geth­er we achieve’. It is our two coun­tries’ com­mon goal to cre­ate a bet­ter fu­ture of shared pros­per­i­ty for our peo­ples and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. All of us are wit­ness­es, ben­e­fi­cia­ries, and builders of the on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment of Chi­na-T&T re­la­tions,” he stat­ed.

“I have full con­fi­dence that, in this ‘Land of Abun­dance’, Chi­na and Trinidad and To­ba­go will work hand in hand to­wards a stronger re­la­tion­ship of ‘abun­dance’, bring­ing more pros­per­i­ty and good­will to both our coun­tries and to the world. I am proud to be here in T&T to help re­alise this vi­sion,” he stat­ed.

Chi­na’s Pre­mier Li Ke­qiang ear­li­er this year an­nounced that Chi­na would tar­get growth of more than six per cent in 2021.

While Chi­na emerged from the glob­al down­turn caused by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic on a sur­er foot­ing than any oth­er ma­jor econ­o­my, it still on­ly grew 2.3 per cent last year.

­From 1949 to 2018, Chi­na’s GDP in­creased by more than 450 times to US$13.6 tril­lion.

Chi­na is now the world’s sec­ond-largest econ­o­my, largest in­dus­tri­al coun­try, largest trad­er in goods, the biggest hold­er of for­eign ex­change re­serves and the sec­ond biggest des­ti­na­tion of for­eign in­vest­ment.