China rolls out red carpet for Mugabe
26 August 2014
by Henry Sanderson
BEIJING — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe met his counterpart, Xi Jinping, in China on Monday, weeks after he was snubbed by US President Barack Obama at a summit of African leaders he hosted in Washington.
Mr Mugabe was welcomed with an honour guard outside the Great Hall of the People, where he received a 21-gun salute. He was then serenaded by three women playing traditional Chinese instruments before heading into closed-door meetings with Mr Xi.
Mr Mugabe’s seizure of land owned by white farmers and a series of elections marred by violence and irregularities have made him a pariah to governments in the Western world. His country’s ability to borrow from global institutions has also been undercut.
Yet China has long maintained close economic and diplomatic links, with Vice-Premier Wang Yang visiting in May last year on a two-day official visit.
"Mugabe’s trip to China is to seek a last financial lifeline for his regime," Martyn Davies, CEO of Johannesburg-based Frontier Advisory, said on Monday. Frontier Advisory provides research on emerging markets.
However, he said, with China reforming its state-owned sector, Mr Mugabe’s party would be "naive to assume that Chinese capital is as easy to get as it has been in previous years".
Mr Mugabe was seeking a $4bn rescue package to stabilise a faltering economy, the Zimbabwe Independent reported earlier this month, citing sources it did not identify. Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa visited China in January and was told to come up with a plan, it said.
Economic growth in Zimbabwe, which averaged 10% between 2009 and 2012, is forecast at 3.1% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Mr Mugabe, who is subject to US sanctions, was one of four African leaders not invited by Mr Obama to the summit earlier this month. The others were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and leaders from Eritrea and Central African Republic. In April, Zimbabwe boycotted a European Union-Africa summit after Mr Mugabe’s wife, Grace, was denied a visa to enter Brussels. Still, Mr Mugabe won endorsement from regional leaders this month when he was named head of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (Sadc).
Mr Mugabe would "discuss infrastructural projects" with China that "add value" to regional products, he said last week at the end of the Sadc summit in Victoria Falls. He is also the frontrunner to lead the 54-nation African Union next year.
"Since countries in the region and the regional organisations endorse Mugabe and his legitimacy, China certainly does not stand alone or feel vulnerable," Yun Sun, a fellow with the East Asia Programme at the Washington-based Stimson Center, said in an e-mail.
China had long viewed Mr Mugabe as an African liberation leader, and supporting Western-style democracy in Africa was not a goal for China, she said. Mr Mugabe’s chairmanship of Sadc meant he had great influence over the agendas of regional organisations, which China would like to participate in as much as possible.
Zimbabwe has the world’s biggest reserves of platinum after South Africa. China Power Investment Corporation may buy a Rio Tinto coal mine in Zimbabwe and build a thermal generator that would double the country’s capacity, Mr Chinamasa said in March.
Trade between the two countries has more than doubled to $1.1bn between 2010 and 2013, China’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, Lin Lin, said in an editorial last week in Zimbabwe’s state-owned Herald newspaper. China’s investment last year was $602m, he said.
BusinessDay