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Fungi Kwaramba
Interview
Today, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), one of the biggest political parties globally, celebrates its centenary anniversary. Under the leadership of CCP, China has been transformed from being an impoverished nation into the world’s second biggest economy. Our Political Editor Fungi Kwaramba (FK) interviewed Zimbabwe’s former Ambassador to China Cde Chris Mutsvangwa (CM) to get insights on how CCP achieved so much in little time. Below are excerpts of the interview.
FK: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which came to power in China nearly 70 years ago, was founded in 1921, what is the significance of this anniversary in the historical context?
CM: China today is the second largest economy in the world and is poised to pip the USA for the top dog pedestal. A feat unthinkable in the early 19th revolutionaries as they plotted to thwart foreign military invasion and semi-colonial coastal control.
1949 saw the birth of the New China Republic. And the Chinese People have never looked back as they overcame challenges and scaled miraculous rungs of success.
FK: But how exactly has this been achievable?
CM: Great achievements are born of immeasurable sacrifice and utter selflessness. This sums up the origins of the Communist Party of China. This year on 1 July 2021, it celebrates a centenary from its founding. What an initially painful road travelled that has now issued to illustrious modern glory!
FK: What are some of the lessons that Zimbabwe can draw from China?
CM: The enduring and abiding lesson is that humanity can yet achieve plentiful abundance and shared prosperity if it dedicates itself to single minded pursuit of people centred policies that do not burden other nations or communities.
The singular achievements of China have been won without enslaving or communities colonially occupying other nations or communities. China has focused on marshalling its inner strength and forging equitable commercial links in the global community.
FK: What does this longevity impart to countries like Zimbabwe which today faces challenges that are essentially a Western creation?
CM: The rejuvenation of modern China is littered with thorns overcome by determination rooted in the history of sacrifice of the Communist Party of China. The Long March and the Protracted War in Asymmetrical Military Confrontation are now case studies in people seeking freedom, independence and democracy against imperial domination.
Entrenched outposts of settler minority colonial domination took avid lessons in Vietnam, Algeria, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia to rid themselves of predatory European colonial powers. Apartheid South Africa succumbed on the prospect of meeting a similar and inevitable fate.
Building upon this case study of political and military organisation, the Communist Party of China had proceeded to render new vistas in theory and practice of modern national development. These salutary lessons of economic management are turning out to be a marvellous example to all nations and the totality of humanity.
The CPC now serves as a beacon of hope that underdevelopment and poverty need not be meekly accepted as the bane of all humanity.
FK: China was never a coloniser, but actually helped in liberating many African nations, tell us about this role.
CM: Hats off to the pioneer revolutionaries especially the exiled Chairman Herbert Chitepo of ZANU then based in Tanzania in the 1960s. Riding on the wisdom of the late president Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, he forged a relationship with a pupating China. It paved the way for comrades like future President Mnangagwa and the late military genius General Josiah Magama Tongogara to seek political orientation, ideological formation and guerrilla military training under Chinese military ethos.
This would turn out to be a boon that delivered the 1979 military victory and the overwhelming electoral success in 1980. Independence, freedom and democracy was baptised by a popular ballot emanating from a protracted people’s war that had hallmarks of the Chinese experience.
The reward has been one of Africa’s most organised populace in a united nation defended by a tried and tested defence and security apparatus.
FK: To what extent has Sino-African relations emboldened African states?
CM: This is the bastion that has forestalled the temptations of would re-colonisers, thwarted neo-colonial schemes and blunted sanctions and induced inflation as tools of economic aggression.
Today, the Second Republic of President Mnangagwa is emerging out of the cloak of a pariah nation seeking to be a friend to all and enemy to none. It is also taking ample advantage of the development dividend offered by China as an alternative and competitive source of capital as an indispensable tool of modern development.
Post-colonial Zimbabwe lost its Ziscosteel mills under withering onslaught by a hostile West.
China’s new crop of private global steel entrepreneurs are taking advantage of our bountiful mineral wealth to give Zimbabwe an even more modern Steel sector in the Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize Iron Mountain Range.
We have to thank those who put faith in the relations with a still poor China that has since notched up such progress.
FK: Covid-19, how has the pandemic affected relations between Zimbabwe and China?
CM: Unexpected misfortunes like the Covid-19 pandemic have demonstrated the deep amity between Harare and Beijing. PPEs and vaccines are helping Zimbabwe garner enviable ratings in the difficult fight against the pandemic.
The CPC has been a miracle to China. It is a wonder to the world. In many ways it is also turning out to be a saviour and boon to Zimbabwe as it seeks its rightful place in the comity of nations.
Zimbabweans rightfully join other people of goodwill in celebrating the 100 years of the CPC. And wishing them many more.
Online Reporter