On the first visit to Zimbabwe by a Chinese leader since 1996, President Xi Jinping on Tuesday witnessed the signing of 10 economic agreements, including on expanding the southern African nation’s largest thermal power plant.
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Mugabe, 91, personally welcomed Xi at Harare International Airport while thousands of visitors thronged the airfield to get a glimpse of the Chinese president.
South African state owned enterprises including Eskom, Transnet, the Industrial Development Corporation, SA National Space Agency and the SA Nuclear Corporation also signed deals with Chinese institutions. President Mugabe chronicled the important role that China played during the Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle by providing military and technical support.
To see China’s evolving foreign policy, look to Africa, where a desire to protect economic investment is leading to a revision of the country’s hands-off approach to the internal affairs of other nations.
With so much financial hardships, many Zimbabweans are hoping that President Xi’s visit isn’t just a symbolic tour but a “serious and sincere” effort to help them change their lives for the better. We will discuss issues of importance to our development, map out new plans and inject new impetus for the future of China-Africa cooperation. And there is far less investment from Beijing into Zimbabwe than into any of its neighbours, such as Zambia, Mozambique and Angola.
The Chinese government became Africa’s largest global trading partner in 2009, according to the South African Institute of worldwide Affairs.
In retrospect, the relationship between China and Africa is an inspiring practice and paradigm of the “new type of worldwide relations”.
Xi described Zimbabwe as an “all-weather friend” of China.
Mr Xi is in Zimbabwe until Wednesday before heading to South Africa for a forum on cooperation between Africa and China as he works to strengthen ties with this continent that is a key supplier to Beijing of oil, minerals, tobacco and cotton.
Zuma said Xi’s second state visit to Pretoria was very significant.
The Zimbabwean government says is grateful to the Chinese for providing capital at a time when the Western countries imposed sanctions on the country.
Through the FOCAC summit, China is expected to send a strong message to the entire world that China and Africa are working together for win-win cooperation and bringing in a new prospect of development for the peoples of both China and Africa, Danish said. It has also prompted some criticism that China’s economic relations with Africa were exploitative and neo-colonial – in fact even more so than Africa’s relations with its former colonial masters, which now often include a greater proportion of value-added exports compared to Africa’s exports to China.
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The two sides will jointly chart the course of cooperation within the next three years, with an aim to accelerate Africa’s industrialization process and help Africa achieve sustainable development, Xi said.
