PRESIDENT TSAI ING-WEN VISITS SAINT LUCIA

Since achieving political independence, Saint Lucia’s diplomatic relations have been firmly established with countries of her choosing, save for Taiwan and China. At Independence, left-leaning politicians tended to favour Communist China (Beijing) whereas the right-leaning ones tended to favour relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan). The main political parties on the island never declared themselves Socialist or Conservative, Left or Right. These labels were attached for convenience.    

In the last twenty years or so, Saint Lucia, along with her nearest neighbour to the south, St. Vincent, has maintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan and both countries have been visited by various Taiwanese heads. The preference of Taiwan is its practice of universal adult suffrage whereby it periodically chooses a president and legislature from contesting candidates. Another reason for choosing Taiwan over Beijing is the similarity in size between Saint Lucia and Taiwan. In addition, Taiwan has pursued a development path which Saint Lucia wishes to emulate. The hostile sabre rattling by communist China, which claims Taiwan as its possession, is anathema to most Saint Lucians who emerged from decades of colonial dominance forty years ago. Taiwan has steadfastly rejected such a claim and has worked hard to develop her economy. In addition, Saint Lucia is unwilling to welcome the excess labour from China.  In copying Taiwan’s economic success, political leaders and students of economic development would do well to study her methods more closely. 

It should not escape alert students of politics that the prescription for the economic miracle in Taiwan was written by no less a person than Saint Lucia’s Sir Arthur Lewis, Nobel laureate in Economics. 

In times past, I stood aside and listened to the criticisms regarding the reconstruction of St. Jude Hospital, after the fire of 2009. The government of Taiwan has assisted with funds for its reconstruction. Politicians, would-be politicians, and assorted political hacks were anxious to blame each other for the delay in reconstruction. To this day, work on the rebuilding project is not completed.

Yet some failed politicians and contractors are still around making mischief, when they ought to be behind bars. Perhaps I see things others refuse to see. Even so, I never imagined that Prime Minister Chastanet would be accused of spending Taiwan’s hospital funds recklessly. Had he followed the example of Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, St. Jude hospital would have been completed, the crooks would be in prison, and not a dog would bark. 

It pains me that no one has appeared before a court of law to answer charges connected to the waste and corruption at St. Jude. It pains me that no one took the time to mention the economic loss of the productive capacity of sick people at a hospital. Not once did the need for the quick rehabilitation of St. Jude Hospital turn on returning the sick to sound health and productivity. The political mud-slinging was so intense that lost economic potential of hospitalized patients and the stagnation of young sporting talent (the stadium became a substitute hospital) was the result. No one bothered to remind the public that”a healthy nation is a wealthy nation”. Our pretenders remember Sir Arthur Lewis once a year, when it’s time to massage their egos. 

Those with greater knowledge of Sir Arthur than his more popular sayings should not be surprised at the following: “Enlightenment should be learnt not from the powerful and the highly educated, but from the humble, and that the answers to big problems, in development as elsewhere, should not be sought mainly from intellectuals in universities, but rather from those who possess wisdom rather than intelligence—the gift of relating to the mass of people and in particular the downtrodden and the oppressed.”

Lewis also said that he tried to pass on to his students that economics concerns life more than numbers. A mathematician might add that maths is about logical thinking, not only about numbers. Can a student who is weak in English be expected to correctly interpret a maths problem that requires logical thinking? And can we now see the broken cycle of sequential thinking between English, Economics, Mathematics and the inability of some of our leaders to correctly identify national socio/economic problems and their solutions?

These random thoughts were underpinned by the fact that the recent visit by the president of Taiwan was the first by a female Head of State. At the banquet in her honour I witnessed the careful planning that went into her visit. This was also obvious in the images of welcome on television. Any contretemps Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition experienced before or during that visit must be seen as misguided politics. The time Madam President spent speaking with the leader of the opposition at the banquet was telling. Mr. Pierre was the first person to be introduced that evening to President Tsai as she strolled with the prime minister among the seated guests.

I smiled in admiration of the good manners and better politics on display. And I thought: Class is class! From Minister Sarah Flood-Beaubrun’s welcome remarks I failed to detect any insincerity, nor did I witness a facial expression that betrayed a lack of honest friendship and love for Taiwan and its President. Some may not regard Sarah as a great orator; some may even question her faith in Roman Catholicism. However, her words never left any doubt about her sincerity. 

If I learned anything on the recalled evening, it was from His Excellency the Governor General who observed that we in Saint Lucia could learn to save on gas and electricity bills by chopping our foods smaller when cooking, as the Taiwanese do. I intend to discover for myself the value of His Excellency’s cooking tip.