West jittery over look East policy
by Caesar Zvayi, The Herald.
Aug 25, 2005 (Harare) — When United States (US) President George W. Bush roared, “either you are with us or against us,” many may have thought that he was referring to the so-called coalition of the willing which helped him to overrun Baghdad in 2003.
It is now clear, however, that Dubya meant that the other 191 countries in the world should think, act and conduct their foreign policies as decided by the oval office.
When the US Congress passed the sanctions law hypocritically dubbed, Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act in December 2001, only the Anglo-Saxon cousins led by the British, Australians and New Zealanders joined the bandwagon by applying unjust sanctions on Zimbabwe.
Like any resourceful nation, Zimbabwe countered the move by strengthening the Look East policy which built on synergies developed between East European and Asian countries, and the Zimbabwe African Liberation Army and the Zimbabwe African Peoples’ Revolutionary Army during the liberation struggle.
The focus on eastern markets has seen Zimbabwe’s trade with China ballooning much to the chagrin of some western governments which hoped that our economy would implode and go down with President Robert Mugabe’s rule.
Zimbabwe’s decision to look east defeated these neo-colonial designs, the same way the east helped Zimbabwe defeat imperialism, amid opposition from western sponsored settler regimes.
Over the past six weeks, two separate but interrelated events in London and Washington clearly showed that the west has already initiated moves to derail Sino-Zimbabwe relations.
The first is the paper that was presented to the US Congress, on July 28, by the US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs in the US Department of State, Michael F. Ranneberger when he appeared before the Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations.
In his paper, Ranneberger clearly acknowledged that, “China’s policy towards Africa is pragmatic and primarily oriented towards economic and commercial goals,” as he highlighted the fact that China’s relationship with Africa was established long before western settlers colonised the continent.
Yet Ranneberger had the cheek to attack Chinese investment in Zimbabwe, which he lumped together with strife torn Sudan, as experiencing gross human rights violations.
“In troubled nations like Sudan and Zimbabwe, we want to ensure that foreign investment does not serve to support those governments at a time that major human rights violations are occurring.
We have made these concerns clear in relation to Chinese investment in Sudan, and activities in Zimbabwe, including diplomatic support, economic and trade deals, and close military ties.”
Ranneberger then revealed the source of his paranoia in the next paragraph where he said that;
“Zimbabwe’s President has visited Beijing to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Chinese officials and is expected to ask for a financial assistance package in a last-ditch effort to obtain funds from its dwindling number of allies and stave off eviction from the IMF (International Monetary Fund).
“Mugabe had earlier proclaimed a ‘Look East’ policy in an effort to showcase ties with China as a substitute for waning business with the West. We will be raising with the Chinese our concerns that Mugabe needs to reform his economic and political policies.”
This is what New Zealand, at the instigation of Britain, tried to do prior to President Mugabe’s trip.
A junior New Zealand diplomat called on China to bar President Mugabe’s state visit, but the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reportedly told Auckland in no uncertain terms that, Beijing is capable of choosing its own friends.
This response which confirmed China’s unwillingness to be used to achieve the west’ s imperial agenda precipitated the second occurrence, which has manifested itself in the ongoing western rat race to buy into influential Chinese financial institutions.
As the Sunday Mail (August 21 2005) reported, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has earmarked a massive US$3,1 billion investment to acquire a 10 percent stake in the Bank of China, China’s second biggest lending bank along with a seat on the board of directors.
This would effectively give the British decision making powers in this vital Chinese institution.
Another British financial giant, HSBC, also invested US$1.75 billion for a 20 percent stake in the Bank of Communications, China’s fifth biggest lender.
And the Bank of America chipped in with a US$3 billion investment to acquire a 10 percent stake in the China Construction Bank.
In addition to these big deals, there has been a flurry of western investments in other strategic Chinese financial institutions.
The fact that RBC and HSBC are intricately linked to the British political establishment has raised eyebrows, since London has not made it a secret that it seeks to close all possible lines of credit for Zimbabwe. Throw in the Americans, and the plot gets thicker.
All the deals that Zimbabwe signed with China hinge on financing from some of these institutions, which is why the westerners want to influence the decision making process to scupper the numerous deals.
This is in spite of the fact that, China is not only dealing with Zimbabwe, but with a host of other African countries.
As Ranneberger pointed out, Chinese – supported infrastructure projects are complementing efforts to promote African growth and China’s experience in poverty reduction is vital to developing African countries.
China’s growing presence in Africa, which is more visible on the economic front, is a natural consequence of Beijing’s economic growth.
Hence over the past five years, Harare has forged stronger relations with Beijing, and these have seen bilateral trade growing steadily, which is why China is the biggest investor in Zimbabwe today.
This is not unusual, because according to the International Monetary Fund, and as Ranneberger highlighted, Africa-China trade doubled between 2002 and 2004, with two-way trade reaching US$21,6 billion in 2004.
Africa’s imports from China increased from US$3.6 billion in 2000 to US$9,6 billion in 2004, and Africa’s exports to China increased from US$4,5 billion in 2000 to US$12 billion in 2004.
Thus Zimbabwe’s trade with China is just a component of increasing continental trade.
In the first quarter of this year alone, Sino-Zimbabwe trade amounted to US$100 million, with tourism and tobacco contributing a huge proportion of the earnings.
China also injected more than US$50 million in joint venture partnerships with Zimbabwean companies in manufacturing, mining, banking, agriculture and construction; in the first six months of this year.
Some of these arrangements culminated in the delivery of passenger planes to Air Zimbabwe, fighter jets to the Air Force of Zimbabwe and buses to the public transport operator, the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company.
Many more deals were secured during President Mugabe’s recent trip to China.
Western opposition to Zimbabwe’s Look East policy exposes the hypocrisy of the ‘make poverty history’ charade at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Gleneagles, Scotland where the industrialised north made a show of fighting to eradicate African poverty.
It also exposes for shams, British Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s so-called Commission for Africa, which is tasked with identifying the cause
of, and coming up with solutions for Africa’s poverty.”
The US government’s so-called, Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that was signed into law by former President, Bill Clinton in May
2000’s broad objective is cited as a quest to “build capacity and infrastructure in sub-Saharan
Africa and expand its participation in the global economy.”
Yet to date the US has done the exact opposite by resisting attempts to reform the skewed trade policies that have negatively impacted on Africa’s capacity to get rid of the begging bowl.
Washington’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol on Climate change is also telling since the persistent droughts that have ravaged sub-Saharan Africa have been linked to global warming which the protocol seeks to curb.
Ironically, Beijing, which initiated the Forum on China Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) around the same time, has made tremendous progress. FOCAC is a vehicle for expanding Sino-Africa economic trade and political ties; it has and is doing exactly that. Thus the flurry to sabotage Zimbabwe’s Look East policy shows that the west’s pretence at being committed to Africa’s economic transformation is mere rhetoric. The shameless attempt to lump Zimbabwe with strife torn Sudan shows that the US will stop at nothing in its attempts to destroy Zimbabwe.
To this end, Washington has drafted a second sanction Bill against Operation Murambatsvina, whose text alleges that Moslem mosques were destroyed at the instigation of the Zimbabwean government.
Yet no single church was destroyed in the exercise since most religious organisations, with permanent structures, built them legally and were thus not targeted by the operation which targeted criminals and illegally built structures.
It is clear that the US lies are a brazen attempt to stir Arab sentiments against Harare in light of the way the Moslem community reacted to news that the Koran, Islam’s holy book, had been desecrated by US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay a few months ago.
The Mosque lie is aimed at cutting Zimbabwe from the predominantly Moslem Middle East.
Yet the whole world knows who is bombing Moslem Mosques on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan.