From Bullets to Bricks: Chinese Foreign Aid to Guyana During the Mao-Era, 1972-1976

Abstract:Scholars, historians, and policy makers have taken close interest in China's role in the developing world. While a robust literature about Africa, Asia, and the Middle East has emerged, this article uses Chinese, Caribbean, and American sources to examine China's first ally in the Caribbean, the former British colony, Guyana. In 1972, Guyana became an unlikely laboratory for Beijing to sell its model of economic development and the site of its first foreign aid project in the Western Hemisphere. For China, Guyana was part of an effort to use modernization and economic development to form a united front of former colonies to hedge against a growing Soviet threat and Soviet-American collusion. Beijing used glossy English-language magazines, trade fairs, and the construction of a brick factory to invest in all facets of Guyana Prime Minister Forbes Burnham's ambitious national development plan to "Feed, Clothe, and House the Nation" by 1976.