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Zhou Meimei and Zhrngchun Wang
Correspondents
Zimbabwe and China can utilise their cherished long standing close and entrenched ties to further consolidate their co-operation, riding on Beijing’s success story which has registered a rapid transformation in terms of economic growth to become one of global fastest developing economies.
A lot of lessons can be drawn on how China transformed its fortunes using the Marxist political economy theory with major focus on how its exploitation, socialisation and control of means of production for the greater good of its citizenry to derive maximum benefit.
Currently Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping and his Zimbabwean counterpart, President Mnangagwa are pursuing tremendous synergies in various sectors in the area of energy, infrastructure and mineral extraction among others to explore a win-win situation and economic benefit.
This comes at a time when Zimbabwe has asserted its control on its primary means of production through the land reform programme embarked on at the turn of the millennium.
This saw the land going back to the rightful owners, the black majority from the white minority who were controlling huge swathes of land.
The black majority had been relegated to control non arid and infertile land in “reserves” where there was hardly any meaningful agricultural production and productivity before the Zimbabwean Government moved in to embark on an agricultural revolution which changed the land ownership pattern in the country.
China’s transformative journey though started as arduous and initially slow, eventually bore fruits resulting in it becoming an economic powerhouse through technological advancement among others anchored on prudent political economy theory over the past decades.
China was almost exclusively a state-owned and collectively-owned enterprise, with very little shareholding or individual ownership possessing, and dominating, the means of production.
At that time, China was relatively short of material resources and had low labour productivity.
To break this situation, the Chinese Government did a lot of work. First of all, it set up more than 10 special economic development zones in China’s coastal and border areas, imported foreign capital, set up sole proprietorships and joint ventures, imported talents and technologies, sent a large number of foreign students abroad to learn advanced science and technology, and used modern management experience.
In the SEZs, a forward looking legal framework was brought about with enforcement but all these were meant to suit different regions or areas of China.
Some of the issues that were attended to include entry visas, relaxation of duty on capital goods, tariff exemption and reduction, general enterprise management and tax exemption, preferential policies for workers, land and other labour resources, many of which have been put in place to enable the SEZs to grow and develop.
After the success of the special economic zones, they were expanded to become cities or a province.
The economic zones were structured in a way that allowed gradual growth so as to meticulously deal with any possible challenges that may crop up along the way.
As a result of these interventions, this year China’s GDP will be close to 130 trillion yuan, anchored on its socialist thrust.
It is equally critical to note that China’s economic development was in two phases.
The first phase began in the first 30 years and the main economic work in this period was to plan, consolidate the foundation and build up strength.
In the second phase, which lasted more than 40 years from 1980 to the present, the economic work of this period was to reform and open up, optimise and adjust, and consolidate and improve.
In terms of economic theory, co-ordinate development of the productive forces and production, which is the most basic principle of Marxian economics.
This grasped the inherent requirements of the socialisation of production at a deep level, and puts science and technology in the first place in the development of the productive forces, and in the adjustment of the relations of production, putting the emphasis on the development of the possession of the means of production, and realises the democratisation of the means of production and science and technology at the disposal of the people.
The socialisation of production, possession and control of the means of production have been organically combined to develop into the world’s second-largest economy for all to see, and the advantage of China’s economy is its efficient growth during the period of stable development of the world economy, and its ultra-stability during the period of economic crises and economic recession.
Marxist political theory, promotes the quality and efficiency change, and power change of economic development, accelerate the formation of a new development pattern with the domestic macro-cycle as the main body and the domestic and international double-cycle promoting each other, fully release the huge potential of economic development, and keenly understand the importance of the economic development of society.
On the other hand, Zimbabwe is a beautiful landlocked country where the land is fertile and rich in resources.
Some of the resources Zimbabwe’s is endowed with include an array of minerals, land and tourism. Harare can emulate China, using land and minerals as the core resources to set up special economic zones and develop them into economic zones to boost Zimbabwe’s economic development.
The economic zones can be set up at the country’s borders, such as the border towns like Beitbridge bordering Zimbabwe and South Africa, Chirundu which borders Zimbabwe and Zambia, and Forbes border post separating Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Various business enterprises can be set up at these entry and exit points through both sole proprietorships and joint ventures.
The effect of this is the coming in of several talented people and advanced technology, and use modernised management experience in the special zones of the facilities,
There should be also one-stop service, visa assistance, not to make things difficult, the entry and exit of goods tariffs and enterprise management tax relief, land and other resources are used to implement preferential policies in place, the special economic zone will continue to grow.
With prudent resource management, anchored on how China revolutionised its economy to become a towering figure in the world where even the West is now turning East, Zimbabwe can consolidate its already earned gains got from the Second Republic under President Mnangagwa whose focus is to attain a middle class income economy by 2030.
The authors are scholars of Marxian economy studies
Online Reporter