adminIt is amazing how the veteran nationalist leader President Mugabe, had vision of China’s growing economic importance in world business dynamics, at that time when western Europe and the United States seemed to be in the driving seat of world economic events.
To date, Zimbabwe and many other countries that followed suit have largely been able to unlock value from co-operating with China than they have co-operating with the West and Unites States.
I recently attended African Union celebrations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and one of the things largely talked about by many leaders and patriotic Africans, was that President Mugabe is by far a great visionary.
The Look East Policy in particular has been very beneficial to many countries that a wary of the Western countries’ approach of regime change, political cohesion and manipulation coupled with Big Brother attitude.
While in Addis Ababa one Afro-American with friends close to the White House, remarked that President Mugabe’s decision to look east irked the American government and its British allies to the extent that they used it as justification for crafting the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act.
The Americans and the British where threatened by the inevitable co-operation between Zimbabwe and China and they really knew that with China, Zimbabwe had found a sanctions buster.
The Americans and the British knew from the day President Mugabe proclaimed the Look East Policy that the former guerrilla leader had become too clever for them.
The Chinese would not be part of regime change and indeed the Chinese would do serious business with Zimbabwe, especially the agriculture mechanisation to support the land reform programme.
They knew the Chinese would use their military and technological prowess to assist Zimbabwe in its training needs in agriculture and security.
The US and its allies knew the security sector reforms they intended to do in order to sneak in Morgan Tsvangirai as the next Zimbabwean leader would fail.
In short, President Mugabe’s look East Policy angered the Western allies and gave them reason to demonise him and try to effect regime change. They hated him for being too visionary and for being too clever. They still hate him for that and they will not forgive him.
But the issue does not stop on Zimbabwe alone. The world economic dynamics have change tremendously ever since the Chinese economy started showing signs of an eventual overtaking of the US economy.
The US and its allies have developed butterflies in their stomach, seeing that the Chinese were not stopping. They are gaining ground in term of economic co-operation with Africa. To date, White House plans to intensify the implementation of its strategy to pressure Beijing politically and economically. The main elements of the Washington’s strategy are the following:
- Retraction of China in the existing mechanisms of global and regional management, and also mechanisms of crisis response to impose US “rules of the game” on Beijing;
- The involvement of Beijing into active bilateral dialogue (first of all “Strategic and economic dialogue US China”) to monitor the current internal political and economic situation in China, reveal “weak points” and find the supporters of liberalisation of Chinese society in the government of china;
- Building of containment infrastructure on the perimeter of the Chinese borders, that will include an increased presence of US military forces in the region and involvement of neighbouring with china countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia and Myanmar) in orbit of the US;
- Creation of an “arc of instability” around China by escalating territorial disputes between Beijing and its neighbours, incitement of ethnic and religious conflicts in Myanmar, Pakistan, Iran and promoting the unsettledness of the situation in the Korean Peninsula;
- Stimulation of the growth of protest mood in China by supporting of Uiguric and Tibetan separatists;
Limitation of Chinese economic expansion in the world by the promotion of US models of regional integration and “extrusion” of Chinese capital from Africa and Latin America.
The White House also doesn’t intend to soften its policy over ecological security and struggle with global warming. It is clear for Washington that joint pressure (with EU) on Beijing in the frames of Kyoto Protocol will slow the growth of the Chinese economy.
Africa, like what President Mugabe recently said, should be aware of the importance of its natural resource base and should use it to leverage trade with any other company or countries that requires trade.
Africa should be aware that many countries in western Europe have over extracted their natural resources and are hence turning to Africa for survival.
What President Mugabe did with the Look East Policy has sent the US and its allies rethinking. It has also sent US and its allies thinking and feeling strange. It has sent the US and its allies seeing that they now play second fiddle to China, which has done extremely well to maintain its relations with African countries.
Dr George Mugo writes for DayAfrica.com. This article is reproduced from DayAfrica.com
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