On February 27, 2022, the Chinese Embassy in Guyana and Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) jointly hosted a China-Guyana Friendship Table Tennis Tournament in Georgetown. Before the games, Ambassador Guo Haiyan and Mr. Robert Persaud, Foreign Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Guyana, together unveiled the 50th-anniversary logo co-designed by the two sides, which marked the official opening of a series of celebrations throughout the year.
In her speech, Ambassador Guo emphasized that the 50th anniversary is an important milestone. During the past 50 years, mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual support and mutually beneficial cooperation are the principles guiding the China-Guyana relationship. It has been proved that consolidating friendship and deepening cooperation is in accordance with fundamental interests of the two countries and two peoples. China looks forward to even closer and more fruitful cooperation in all fields with Guyana. "Table tennis is the common language in sports of the two peoples", said Ambassador Guo. She wished all players to keep the spirits of the just-concluded Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in mind, give the best performance and show solidarity in the competition.
Mr. Persaud underscored that the Guyana-China friendship started to grow as early as the first batch of Chinese people arrived in Guyana. After the establishment of the diplomatic ties, there has always been a unified view in Guyana of the one-China policy. The two sides have not only cooperated closely in economic and political areas, but also worked on bringing the two peoples together, which can be demonstrated through this table tennis tournament. He also encouraged the players to use this "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" event as a platform to forge greater ties and achieve greater cooperation results.
After the unveiling ceremony, an extraordinary exhibition match was performed by Guyana national team champions. Then, under the introduction of Mr. Godfrey Munroe, President of GTTA, Mr. Chen Xilai, Deputy Chief of the Embassy, Mr. Manzoor Nadir, Speaker of the National Assembly, and Mr. Ishaka Jackman, IT and Media Specialist Player of GTTA, led Team Red, Yellow and Blue respectively in a team competition. It took 13 matches to finally decide the winner. Team Blue in the end won the first prize, and Team Yellow and Team Red took the second and third places.
