admin
Zimbabwe has a lot to learn from China especially in realising that the source of the country’s well-being lies in harnessing Zimbabwe’s own resources instead of depending on foreign direct investment.AFRICA’S post-liberation era has been characterised by attempts by many African leaders to chart a new economic direction that seeks to minimise dependency on the former colonial rulers.
In the case of Zimbabwe, the need for an economic paradigm shift was necessitated by Britain’s control of a large chunk of the country’s industrial base.
The economic shift was necessitated by the Government’s need to fulfil one of the aspirations of the liberation struggle — the land redistribution exercise, whose thrust was to correct historical land deprivations.
In response, Britain and its allies imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe as a way of ostracising the country’s leadership and stall economic progress.
As a survival tactic, the Government embarked on the Look East policy whose essential drive was to synergise economic relations with friendly Asian countries particularly China.
China became an attractive economic partner given its status as an emerging world economic giant and also because of its affable foreign policy that hinged on non-interference in the domestic affairs of individual countries.
It was envisaged that this economic partnership with China would act as some kind of buffer against the economic sanctions imposed by United States and the European Union bloc.
The extent of the Zimbabwe-Sino relations was concretised by various bilateral arrangements that led the Chinese Premier Hu Jintao to assert that: “Developing friendly relations between China and Zimbabwe is an unshakeable policy.”
It must be noted that China’s relations with Zimbabwe were not a knee-jerk survival impulse of a government under siege but were and are steeped in the country’s historical struggle for independence which China supported financially and materially.
It is that history that has made the economic sanctions imposed by United States and the EU look like a mockery as the total collapse of the economy anticipated by the West failed to materialise.
Chinese investments in mining and other sectors have to a large extent maintained some semblance of stability in the economic sphere in the short-term but real sustainable development has been slow in coming due to a number of factors.
Chief among the factors is the country’s huge import bill which compares unfavourably with our exports and has created a serious liquidity crunch as the country enters a deflation mode.
While the maintenance of Zim-Sino relations is mutually beneficial, it must be noted that China’s aggressive entry into Africa is not an act of charity but premised on ensuring that it sustains its ballooning industrial demand for raw materials and other essential commodities.
Zimbabwe has a lot to learn from China especially in realising that the source of the country’s well-being lies in harnessing Zimbabwe’s own resources instead of depending on foreign direct investment.
In recent newspaper columns, Dr Tafataona Mahoso and Amai Jukwa make interesting points on the need to harness local intellectual and material resources for the good of the country.
Dr Mahoso has persistently argued for homegrown solutions in resuscitating the economy no matter how painful the repercussions are in the short-term.
In his own words Dr Mahoso said: “A vibrant, fully liquid national economy producing for the local market becomes the scaffolding from which to lift national producers into the foreign market. A national currency is a critical ingredient in the construction of such scaffolding.”
In the columnist’s usual robust style, Amai Jukwa concurred with Dr Mahoso’s reasoning that Zimbabwe had a national currency for 29 years and that currency worked decently under the very same Government Zimbabwe has today.
Said Amai Jukwa: “Why should the events of 2007 and 2008, a mere two years, be used to characterise the essence of a national currency? Surely a balanced conversation would also give weight to the 27 successful years in which ‘schools, clinics, dip-tanks, roads, laboratories, universities, magistrates’ courts, community centres and libraries,’ were built on the back of that currency?”
Dr Mahoso and Amai Jukwa’s logic is easy to understand. It is rooted in the understanding of a serious analysis of the thinking in the corridors of Government who believe that exotic economic prescriptions will have some magical effect on the economy yet history shows this thinking is.
In its wisdom, the ZANU-PF Government initiated the Zim-Asset programme, which unlike all previous economic blueprints, was not hurriedly foisted on the people without consultations.
Zim-Asset is different in that the people have a buy-in and its origins are within the election manifesto of ZANU-PF, which won a two thirds majority.
The Government must therefore be seized with bringing to life the Zim-Asset blueprint instead of waiting for some benefactor from Utopia.
As Africans, we must be alive to the common African proverb that says that “the hand that receives is always under the one that gives.”
It is sad to note that the country’s economic world view is still modelled along what Xing Li, a lecturer and researcher at Aalborg University, Denmark, refers to as econocentricism — a neoliberal belief that emphasises the dominance of market forces.
A bit of history on how China managed to uplift itself from an economic abyss is crucial at this juncture as it clarifies issues.
In the 1840s, the Sino-British Opium Wars ended with China’s defeat and the Treaty of Nanjing forced China to pay huge indemnity to Britain for the war costs and imposed on China a tariff on all imported goods.
The consequences of the Opium War to China were devastating as China became some kind of an international colony.
But since the turn of the new millennium, Chinese society has drastically changed.
China’s economy oscillated between state-led industrialisation based on planned economy and socialist egalitarianism to an all-round structural reform based on market mechanisms.
In highlighting the Chinese success story, Li says the Chinese economy underwent repeated shifts from crisis and failure to very rapid growth and modernisation.
“Politically, the Chinese people experienced imperialism and warlodism as well as dictatorship and class struggle,” says Li.
For more than a century the Chinese people have been striving to find answers to the puzzles of war and peace, national liberation and independence, development of productive forces and human capacities, self-reliance and equality.
The gist of the Chinese experience is that they were prepared to undertake painful decisions that altered the course of their status in world affairs. Similarly, Zimbabwe, with all its resources, must be searching for concrete answers on how the country can be prosperous, strong and self-sufficient.
Zimbabwe must continue striving for a suitable industrialisation path as envisaged in Zim-Asset and develop the country into a prosperous nation while adjusting strategically in the existing capitalist world.
It is worrying that the African continent is still the most oppressed and exploited, the most marginalised and debt-ridden, and the most impoverished and war-torn yet it’s the richest in terms of resources.
Despite its abundant resources, Africa is still considered the least industrialised of all developing regions and accounts for more than half of the world’s economic and war refugees.
The reason is simple. The lack of decisive leadership to embrace wholesale liberating economic paradigms. It is strange to envisage the same nations and institutions responsible for the continent’s plunder to change and become its saviour.
It is retrogressive to imagine that continued borrowing will improve the economic situation in Zimbabwe when it is clear that the country’s debt represents a serious burden which hampers progress in every sector. The fact that we have survived more than a decade of economic sanctions must spur us to realise the fact that we have the means to make the economy work and the answer lies in us doing what is right.
Like what Mai Jukwa said, trust and confidence are priceless attributes for any economic revival.
We need to continue demanding a serious audit of our national resource base and outline measures on how these can be efficiently and transparently utilised.
The reason why China was able to industrialise more rapidly to become a global power since 1949, was that the Communist revolution “decisively broke the ties that chained China to the imperialist system” and also broke a variety of complicated domestic confinements, such as localism, provincialism and warlordism.
In the case of Zimbabwe, a new and efficient take-off could only be realised by dismembering the roots of these social diseases and re-establishing an independent social, economic and cultural foundation as enunciated in the Zim-Asset document.
Online Reporter