By Janette Bulkan

Introduction: China has arranged free trade agreements (Coxhead 2007, Jenkins et al. 2007) which lay out in some details what is to be traded and on what terms in a WTO-compatible framework with large supply countries such as Chile and Peru, both significant for minerals. Smaller countries, including former colonies of European powers, may have experience of one-sided trading arrangements during colonial times and more recently are likely to have enjoyed the various trade shelters arranged by the European Commission, such as the Lomé Convention (1976-1999) and its successor the Cotonou Agreement (2003-2023). How are small countries now relating to a China hungry for renewable and non-renewable natural resources? After decades of lectures and conditionalities imposed by the donor agencies of the former colonial powers, how does the Chinese approach of an unconditional commercial relationship actually work out in practice? This paper deals with the case of Guyana, a small and politically isolated semi-socialist country, the only anglophone in South America.