Mnangagwa's China visit to define our future

President Emmerson Mnangagwa left Harare for China yesterday and is expected to arrive in Beijing today for a historic four-day State visit to the global economic powerhouse.

China is arguably Zimbabwe's strongest ally outside Africa. The ties grew from the support that China rendered to Zimbabwe during the 1970s liberation struggle. China trained hundreds if not thousands of liberation war cadres and provided them with arms, logistical and morale support.

At independence in 1980 the relationship remained largely political. At the turn of the millennium the co-operation became broader, encompassing the economic and cultural in addition to the traditional facet of politics. This major shift that we now refer to as the Look East Policy, was largely a response by Harare to its fraught relations with Europe and America which saw the two blocs imposing illegal sanctions on our country over the land reform and redistribution programme.

The shift also entailed deepening co-operation with Russia, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries in the East.

China stood by Zimbabwe through Harare's most trying times from the liberation struggle to the past 17 years of illegal Western economic sanctions.

Beijing continued to provide loans and grants to shore up the stricken Zimbabwean economy and has financed the building of critical infrastructure and offered diplomatic support. Who will ever forget the vetoing in July 2008 by China and Russia of a UN Security Council resolution that, if it had sailed through, was to lead to UN-backed sanctions being imposed on our country followed by a military invasion?

It is therefore not surprising that President Mnangagwa has recognised this strong historical and contemporary relationship and made a conscious decision to make his first State visit out of Africa to the country's all-weather friend. He will meet his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping and witness the signing of a "huge package" to help advance the ongoing economic recovery efforts.

"I am going to the People's Republic of China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping and I will say thank you, not only to the President but to the people of China for standing and supporting Zimbabwe during the hard times when the West imposed sanctions on us.

"Even when the world wanted to invade this country at the (United Nations) Security Council, China alongside Russia vetoed that action. So that is the first thing we want to say 'thank you for standing with us.' But it is now necessary for us to be able to stand on our own; we want our elder brothers to extend their hand and say 'come up' and to do so we must have deeper economic relations.

"We know the road we need to follow to grow our economy. We have the priorities set out and we know the goals we want to reach. So, we are going to China to say this is the vision we have as Zimbabwe and for this vision, these are the targets we want to meet."

Consistent with the business approach that is driving President Mnangagwa's Government, he is accompanied by no less than 80 business executives on top of about 10 ministers. The President has indicated that his administration is not all about politics and politics alone, but chiefly economics. Politics, of course, will be a factor although with less influence as before.

Indeed, President Mnangagwa's State visit to China is likely to take Sino-Zimbabwe ties to a new level. China's Deputy Ambassador to Zimbabwe said on Good Friday that an announcement to that effect will be made, likely this week.

This is what we have been waiting for. We know that while China has stood by us in recent years and has granted loans and other forms of economic support to Zimbabwe, it should be a big surprise to many that that is actually not as much as other African countries with weaker political and historical ties with China enjoy.

For example, Zimbabwe does not feature in the top 10 destinations of direct Chinese investment from 2003 to 2017. Egypt is number one, followed by Nigeria, Algeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Angola, Niger, Zambia and Morocco. In addition, Zimbabwe does not feature among the top six recipients of loans from China Eximbank from 2000 to 2015. Ethiopia is number one, followed by Angola, Kenya, Sudan, Cameroon and DRC.  These figures are more than enough evidence that although there has been much talk about increasing economic co-operation between Zimbabwe and China since 2000, the relations hadn't reached a stage where our African neighbours have attained.

We suspect that the key reason why this is so is that our politics in recent years had become too toxic even for our closest of friends.

Now that we have a new dispensation in place which knows business and does not to pick up counter-productive fights with everyone, we have well-founded optimism that the Zimbabwe's economic co-operation with China will match our rhetoric and strong, longstanding political ties.

This week will define that future.