U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Suriname on Thursday (September 17, 2020) on the first leg of a four-nation tour of South America, seeking to compete with China for economic and political influence in South America’s smallest country based on the principles of transparency, rule of law, and fairness.
Suriname’s election of Chan Santokhi as its new president this July, after years of rule by former dictator Bautista, presents an opportunity for the United States to launch a new era in its relations with Suriname.
In a joint meeting with reporters after meeting with Pompeo, the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Suriname since the country’s independence in 1975, Santokhi said the historic visit reflects the strategic importance of the relationship between the two countries. He said Suriname, a fellow Western Hemisphere nation, looks forward to working with the United States to defend democratic institutions, the rule of law, good governance, and human rights.
The only Western journalist allowed to ask a question at the joint press conference, AFP’s Tandon, asked Pompeo how the United States could compete with China’s growing influence in Suriname and throughout South America. He also asked President Shan Dorji how he would strike a balance between the United States and China.
Pompeo said that the United States has observed over the past several years that under Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party has invested here and around the world in ways that are inconsistent with the values of democracy, rule of law, good governance, and human rights that President Shan Dodji has just talked about. He is convinced that under the Western model of freedom, democracy and human rights, the United States will succeed in Suriname and other countries in the region.
Shan Dorji said that relations with China were not on the agenda for his talks with Pompeo and that Suriname did not have to choose between the United States and China. He said that Suriname has entered a new phase of intensified cooperation with the United States, while at the same time Suriname has good cooperation with many other countries.
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Suriname said in a statement Thursday that China-Suriname relations are based on the principle of mutual respect and mutual benefit and win-win situation, and that Pompeo’s attempts to unjustifiably attack and smear China and maliciously provoke relations between other countries and China under the guise of so-called democracy, freedom and human rights during his visit to Suriname are futile.
China’s Ministry of Commerce, in introducing the economic and trade cooperation between China and Suriname, said that Suriname is rich in natural resources such as minerals, forests and fisheries, and that China is one of Suriname’s main sources of imports.
Tandon, an AFP reporter who was in Suriname to cover Pompeo’s trip, tweeted that the first billboard he saw after leaving the airport was an advertisement for Guizhou Moutai wine and a drawing of the Forbidden City.
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