Posted on 11/05/2006 2:06:18 AM PST by MadIvan
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has hailed China as his “second home” and praised Beijing for its refusal to link aid and investment to human rights or democracy as it scrambles for assets in Africa.
Mugabe’s remarks came in an “exclusive interview” with the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, which rarely boasts of its exclusives but was eager to publicise his appreciation of China’s friendship in contrast to “western hostility”.
The red carpet has been laid out for 48 African leaders, including Mugabe and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, as China revels in hosting its biggest summit with the continent since the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949.
“In most recent times, as the West started being hostile to us, we deliberately declared a Look East policy,” Xinhua quoted Mugabe as saying.
“These were the friends we relied upon during the liberation struggle and they will not let us down,” he added. “For Zimbabwe, going to China is going to our second home. We regard China as a part of us.”
Xinhua said China had just extended a £2.7m loan to Zimbabwe to refurbish its biggest stadium, which was built by a Chinese company.
It has also offered £110m to finance agricultural production and the purchase of three Chinese-made passenger planes.
Opposition groups and human rights activists say prestigious projects such as the stadium refurbishment are inappropriate when millions of Zimbabweans have been impoverished by inflation and disastrous economic policies.
But the Zimbabwe deals are emblematic of China’s refusal to let political criticism stand in the way of its demand for oil, minerals, diamonds and timber from Africa.
Xinhua frankly admitted that China invested billions of pounds in Zimbabwe because it is “keen to secure strategic natural resources to help sustain its mouth-watering economic growth of more than 10%”.
Mugabe said such investment was welcome because it made Zimbabwe less vulnerable to “pressure and political manipulation” by the West.
That theme was underlined yesterday when China promised to double its aid to Africa and pledged billions of pounds in loans to forge a “strategic partnership” between the two giants as a political and economic counterweight to western power.
The announcement came in a speech by President Hu Jintao to his guests that also challenged the West’s attempts to link human rights and democracy in Africa to aid and development.
Mugabe and Sudan’s Bashir listened with evident approval as the Chinese leader talked of “a regular high-level political dialogue . . . to enhance mutual political trust”.
In Sudan, China’s strategic interest in securing oil supplies has led it repeatedly to block any efforts by the United Nations Security Council to intervene in the conflict in Darfur, where aid agencies say a human catastrophe has occurred.
Hu blandly told the Sudanese leader last week that he hoped Bashir’s regime “can find an appropriate settlement, maintain stability, and constantly improve the humanitarian conditions in the region”. Chinese diplomats have also frustrated any UN sanctions against either Sudan or Zimbabwe.
Hu preferred to focus on “win-win” economic growth — China and Africa conducted £22 billion worth of trade in the first nine months of this year, up 40% on a year earlier — and of “cultural enrichment” through exchanges of ideas.
The latter has baffled many Beijing residents as their capital has abruptly been plastered with propaganda posters promoting all things African — although some of the African visitors may not be wholly pleased by the visual emphasis on elephants, jungle, warlike tribesmen and colourfully clad women of ample proportions carrying outsize bundles on their heads.
However, both sides are determined to overlook any unfortunate cultural misunderstandings in their enthusiasm for doing business without strings attached.
The Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao said China’s aid to Africa would, as always, be “sincere and altruistic” and China has just announced it will cancel about £1 billion in debts owed by some of the poorest African nations.
However, China has also revealed itself extremely sensitive to accusations that it is behaving like a modern colonial power. Xinhua yesterday dedicated a commentary to refuting what it called “the fallacy that China is exercising ‘neo-colonialism’ in Africa”.
“The forces that are circulating the fallacy are fearful of China’s fast growth and the positive development of Sino- African relations,” it said, identifying the culprits as “some people from the West”.
Their aim, said Xinhua, was to “block China’s peaceful development so as to maintain their established interests in the world arena”.
China has devoted an extraordinary effort to make Beijing pristine, pollution-free and devoid of traffic jams for the summit, in a useful dress rehearsal for the 2008 Olympic Games.
For Mugabe, the reference to China as a “second home” may be more than a pleasantry. Some diplomats in Beijing think the Zimbabwean leader would be assured of a safe refuge there should he ever fall from power.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Good. They richly deserve each other. And if one could, by some magic wand, saddle the Chinese with every basket case in the world, they would surely collapse under the weight.
Hopefully the chi-coms will make inroads in Haiti also.
They are realists and tough-minded in pursuit of their own interests. They going to do very well in Africa and elsewhere and get what they want (oil, allies on their UN votes) while Western governments funnel all their aid $$ through NGOs which sit around dithering about whether enough gender equity seminars have been held in the donee country.
Maybe Africa could export some of their AIDS to China.
Why would they want or should make such link? They are pragmatic, they want resources, markets, and allies.
Inflow of money WILL improve lives of Zimbabweans. For example they will work at this stadium refurbishment and they will use it.
Haiti already gets US help.
China is one superpower that could go in and clean up the tribal messes of Africa in a colonial way without anyone (MSM)calling them racist. Not saying this bodes well for the rest of the world but Africa needs a babysitter willing to kill off the murderous thugs that have ruined this continent.
I know, that is my point.
We keep throwing money into that pit to no avail like we have so often Africa in the past.
Let the chi-coms throw their money away.
And second prize is ?
A lot of it really is just basic economic development. Africa needs all the foreign investment it can get. A stadium is better than no stadium, regardless of how little perceived benefit it is to the "average" Zimbabwean. Western NGOs have a tendency to forget this and end up throwing money on unproductive social projects that are even less beneficial to the "average" man than a stadium. China got significantly wealthier over the last decade from undiscriminately accepting foreign investment all over the world. The Chinese appear to have considerable faith in Adam Smith's "invisible hand," while many leftists in the West have lost that faith.
As French and Bolshevik revolutions demonstrated, scouring will scour, burning will burn, slashing will slash.
What is needed is building, humility and patience. Things like stadiums add to the infrastructure of civilization. Purging, killing, bombing will satisfy Puritan arrogant passions while bringing misery and destruction.
China has jumped the shark. Africa is a bottomless pit.
Africa had better bring a very long spoon.
Not so many years ago China and India were seen as hopeless cases. Now Africa undergoes the period of hidden growth.
Trivial things which do not show much in GDP statistics like organizing local schools, introducing electric grids, radio or TV, some gadgets and second hand goods can be revolutionary. People are waking up and learning. Give them 20 more years and you will be amazed.
Maybe since Fukuyama admitted the error of nation-building in Africa there is hope.
I'm sure it's much easier for these corrupt thugs to sell out the assets of their countries to the chicom, who could not care less about anyone's rights. Think of the people of darfur.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.