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ZIMBABWE and Japan have strong bilateral relations dating back to independence in 1980. The two countries have a long history of cooperation at all levels and this is largely due to the cordial relations that have existed between the nations. Japan has extended various kinds of assistance to Zimbabwe and supported many local projects for socio-economic development through the grant aid scheme for grassroots human projects.
But the Asian country scaled down its activity in Zimbabwe for a decade between 2002 and 2012 in solidarity with the West which had imposed sanctions on Harare and waged an onslaught on the country to effect regime change. During this period most Japanese companies and citizens that were domiciled in Zimbabwe left the country. Implementation of fully-fledged bilateral economic cooperation between Zimbabwe and Japan was constrained. However, there appears to be a thawing of relations between the two countries and this is welcome.
Speaking on a visit to Japan at the weekend, President Robert Mugabe said Japan is warming up to Zimbabwe even though it had shown a regrettable tendency to “listen to the West” over its foreign policy on Zimbabwe, in the process poisoning relations between the two countries.
“We’ve a Look East policy that means deal with Japan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia and cooperate together. We’ve some Japanese level of cooperation but it could be better and I think Japan also tended to listen to the West as it criticised us and naturally tended to withdraw, but it’s only now that it’s warming up again towards us,” President Mugabe told a Japanese TV station following a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.
“We’ve been dealing with China openly, India quite openly, so why not other people?” President Mugabe granted an interview to the TV station on the sidelines of the 3rd United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Management, being held in Sendai, Japan. Even as he spoke about Zimbabwe’s isolation by Japan, President Mugabe said Western countries who had demonised Zimbabwe over the last 15 years after the country began a programme of land reclamation from descendants of white colonial settlers were now backpedalling furiously.
“Western countries didn’t want to deal with us. It’s only now that they are coming forward, but we won’t go down and kneel,” he insisted.
He said the country has natural resources like gold, diamonds, platinum and coal among other minerals that needed capital to convert into wealth. But Zimbabwe, he emphasised, would rather deal only with allies who share the same vision.
“We don’t want a system that reduces us to labourers, no, we want to be participants in our economy; to be owners of our economy, to assert that the natural resources are ours, they’re our worth and they should be developed with assistance yes, but assistance that does not reduce us into semi-slavery,” he said.
We agree with the President and urge Japan to deal with Zimbabwe on its own terms and refrain from a tendency of kow towing to the whims and caprices of the West in its dealing with Harare. Zimbabwe’s Look East policy has seen a mutually beneficial relationship go from strength to strength with countries such as China which have a foreign policy which is not dictated by the West.
China believes in non-interference in internal matters of its trading partners and it is this stance that has won it many friends in Africa, Zimbabwe included. We are glad that Japan is slowly warming up to Zimbabwe and this was buttressed by a pledge of $2,5 million for disaster risk preparation and management made by the Asian country’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo when he met President Mugabe in Sendai on Sunday.
We hope this visit marks the revitalisation of bilateral relations including the resumption of the full-fledged bilateral economic cooperation between Zimbabwe and Japan.
Online Reporter