IMAGINE your father having an “all-weather friend” who appears to stand by him in every situation.
This seemingly “all-weather friend”, however, looks away as your father brutally batters your mother and does not appear to give a hoot when his family goes without decent meal.
Yet, the “dear friend” never hesitates to buy your father gallons and gallons of alcohol, books him into lodges to enjoy with secret lovers and buys him the latest exquisite attire.
In all this, he is not willing to (as he simply does not care) help when you cry out for desperately-needed school fees or money to procure urgent medical attention for your very sick mother.
As a matter of fact, the friend now appears to have some unexplained undue influence over your father — such that your father readily surrenders to him various expensive family assets, leaving his wife and children poorer.
What can we say about your father’s friend?
Can he be regarded as a true friend or an unwanted manipulating crook — who does not genuinely love your father, let alone his family — but merely wants to exploit him?
Is this not exactly what we are witnessing with the relationship between Zimbabwe and China?
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Our supposed “all-weather friends” seem always too ready to “assist” the country.
Just recently, they donated military hardware, in the form of armoured fighting vehicles, personnel carriers, ambulances, motorised water purifiers, patrol boats, minibuses, sniper rifles, machine guns and hand pistols.
As I write this piece, my mind cannot help thinking of the Rudd Concession of 1888 — signed between Cecil John Rhodes and Ndebele King Lobengula — in which the latter was promised a gunboat and Martini-Henry rifles with their ammunition in exchange for gold.
Why should I not think this way when the Chinese are pretty much doing the same thing more than 130 years later?
In the midst of donating a humongous Parliament building in Mount Hampden and assisting in the massive expansion of the RGM International Airport — Zimbabwe has, in the process, lost its natural resources to the Chinese.
The East Asians have seemingly been granted “complete and exclusive charge over all metals and minerals situated and contained” in Zimbabwe, in typical Rudd Concession fashion. While the Chinese are pillaging our diamonds, platinum, gold and now lithium, local communities continue to wallow in extreme poverty.
According to a recent a Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association report, Chinese-owned companies have acquired the biggest portfolio of lithium mining projects in Zimbabwe.
Nonetheless, while Zimbabwe needs these Chinese investments, the country seems to be turning a blind eye to some of the governance factors that hinder Zimbabwe’s economic growth and benefits to communities.
These include, but are not limited to, poor safety standards, unsafe working conditions, unfair displacement, environmental damage and low wages for workers.
Surely, what benefits have the people of Marange derived from the discovery and exploitation of diamonds in their area for the past 18 years? Are they actually not worse off and poorer today — having been forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands and moved to areas without any meaningful infrastructure or services?
The same applies to the people of Hwange, Binga, Mutoko, Mutorashanga and many others who were dispossessed of their land, with the responsible Chinese companies accused of the desecrating sacred graves, shrines and heritage sites.
All in all, though, there has not been significant compensation for these removals, much less any development to write home about — not only in these communities but also across the country. If these communities are “lucky”, they may have some “token benefits”, such as one or two classroom blocks, a road or bridge constructed, as well as poorly-paid unsafe menial jobs offered to local youths.
This is in addition to the wanton destruction of the environment through widespread land degradation. This means that, upon completion of these mining activities, the affected communities will be left with useless land, on top of being poverty-stricken.
With Zimbabwe being home to the largest lithium reserves in Africa, the seventh largest diamond producer in the world and a leader in gold production, should we, by now, not be the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia of Africa?
Yet, we continue hogging the headlines for all the wrong reasons by being identified for our poverty, with nearly half the population classified as “extremely poor”.
Despite these “investments”, which appear awesome on paper, the Chinese have focused more on taking as much as they can from the country, while ploughing back as little as possible.
This sad story does not end there.
Zimbabwe is clearly sinking into a deep, inescapable “debt trap” craftily set up by our very own “all-weather friends”.
When it comes to real development — which has the potential of improving the livelihoods of the citizenry — the Chinese have absolutely nothing to offer or donate. They easily give military equipment and a grandiose Parliament building — which have no significance to poor Zimbabweans.
However, all this will always come at a cost to Zimbabwe simply because most, if not all, of these “investments” and loans from China are forever shrouded in secrecy — since the terms of their agreements are never made public.
This, of course, raises more questions than answers.
What are the Chinese truly receiving in return for their “investments”, donations or loans? Are these companies even paying taxes?
Yet, President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s government is more than happy taxing dry suffering Zimbabweans till they squeal.
Zimbabwe owes huge amounts of money to China Eximbank and Sinosure, which provides export credit insurance to Chinese companies.
As I write this, Harare owes Beijing nearly US$3 billion, mostly for infrastructure projects.
Nevertheless, Mnangagwa’s administration has not been servicing its debts fast enough, though it paid US$18 million to China Eximbank and the same amount to Sinosure.
This resulted in US$156 million being unlocked to fund the completion of two new units at the Hwange Thermal Power Station, refurbishment of the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport terminal and cellular network provider NetOne’s fibre project. The slow pace in servicing Chinese loans is the reason why progress at these projects, at times, appeared stalled and not going anywhere.
India actually had to chip in with US$18 million that was used to build a water supply line to the new power units at Hwange.
As can be seen, China is not happy — and when China is not happy, dire consequences await!
Who can easily forget the fate of Sri Lanka, which, in 2018, was forced to hand over the Hambantota Port to China after failing to repay the US$1,3 billion loan for its construction?
One can only imagine what will happen in the event that Zimbabwe defaults.
Or, will the Zimbabwe regime repeat its past shenanigans of using platinum reserves worth over US$26 billion (some reports say US$52 billion) as security for a US$200 million loan from China?
This US$200 million was not even for the benefit of the ordinary citizenry — but intended to give high-ranking Zanu PF officials, legislators, judges and politically-connected individuals expensive farm equipment, for which they subsequently never paid back?
The “all-weather friendship” is fast proving to only be “fair-weather friendship” after all. In fact, that is exactly what is witnessed in the manner of “donations” made to Zimbabwe by the Asian giant.
If we are genuinely “all-weather friends” why would they donate military equipment or a Parliament building — in a country without adequate hospitals, schools and a derelict health delivery system allowing people to die of medieval diseases such as cholera?
Why not donate much-needed essential medications, cancer machines or ambulances that can actually be used by the general population? Who needs a new Parliament building when many rural children in Zimbabwe are still learning under trees or in dilapidated unsafe structures?
What does the Zimbabwe regime need armoured fighting vehicles, personnel carriers, patrol boats, sniper rifles, machine guns, and hand pistols for? Who are we at war with?
We only shudder to think that one day we will likely face the brunt of all this weaponry, especially all those Zimbabweans who choose to exercise their constitutional right to peacefully demonstrate.
These Chinese know very well that the military equipment they are donating will be deployed against ordinary citizens. We can never forget the Chinese arms shipment to Zimbabwe in 2008.
Although it was initially foiled in the port of Durban, it is widely believed that it made its way to Zimbabwe by other means, possibly by road. This is the same year the Zanu PF regime unleashed the most savage massacre of ordinary citizens since the 1980s genocide.
This was after then President Robert Gabriel Mugabe lost, in the first round of presidential elections, to the opposition MDC-T’s Morgan Richard Tsvangirai.
Again, I ask: Is China really helping suffering Zimbabweans? Or, is China merely helping itself?
The people of Zimbabwe need to stand against this exploitative relationship between their government and China!
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice activist, writer, author and speaker. He writes here in his personal capacity.
