Zimbabwe: China's newest eco-political harbor dispossessing western influence in Africa

To China, Zimbabwe is China's newest colonial harbor while to the United States, Zimbabwe is the United States' newest threat to its US-Africa imperialistic agenda. Cecil John Rhodes succeeded in blocking Boer-Afrikaner influence from crossing further afar off into Cairo from the Cape. Rhodes also blocked Portuguese colonialist interests from crossing over and overshadowing the rest of Southern Africa, from Sofala down to the Atlantic port of Angola. Though Rhodes' mission failed then, China has however, chosen to re-visit Africa's colonial archives and reinstating the statue of Rhodes from the Cape into Harare, but now the new Rhodes is China assuming the incarnate role of Cecil in its modern day imperialistic strategy.

Sino-African relations are fast becoming more popular among nationalist regimes of Africa, a move which is soon likely to provoke the US to employ regime change force models tailor made to uproot dominant African regimes. This the US will desperately employ in a despotic bid to maintain US influence on the African continent. The US knows too well that it has over-extracted African resources to the point that their presence on the African soil is greatly antagonized. It now simply means that the US and her empires must therefore turn to other sources of extraction. But where and how is the golden question on the African political table talk. In the global political environment, western empires of old are fast diminishing and shrinking, while the capacity for colonial masters of old to maintain a tight grip on former African colonies is proving to becoming an increasingly costly and impossible venture.

China has somehow revamped the colonial methodology which the US has tactically renamed globalization. Because the US has over- extracted a high amount of resources out of Africa, this has led to its recent unpopularity among African regime governments, leading to it fast depreciating ability to survive on the continent. China's colonial approach is somewhat dodgingly temperate. According to its proposed African neo-colonial model,  China is extracting little at the moment, allowing the African colony some modicum of self-control as well as sufficient resources to attain partial autonomy and to grow; the empire then gains over a long span of time as a result of the increased resources within the colony that the Chinese empire can extract. Chinese defense and military deals with former European colonies has ignited diplomatic and bureaucratic measures that have further intensified regime confidence and longevity. This has thus given China more room for gradual but uninterrupted increase in extraction. In these and many other ways, as well as in differing combinations of these modes over time and across geography, imperialization simply means the empire's removal of resources from its colonies.

It is however difficult to raise critical comments about US-Sino imperialistic agendas in general and the American Dream in particular. For many, it is simply unthinkable to engage in any type of criticism of China and America, given their belief in China and America as the fulfillment of their dreams. Criticism is regarded as tantamount to ungratefulness, rather like vomiting out one's dream and then proceeding to eat back one's vomit. For many Africans, such an attitude is to be without debt of gratitude. The slogan is 'one must take China or America or leave it. This is how many of the African regimes think. African regimes by doing so perceive in their depraved minds that they can repay China or America – by accepting their colonial demands for world supremacy without question.

The challenge, therefore, is to raise the social awareness of African presidents and the Africans, so that they can come to understand that there African sovereign dreams are being betrayed such that they will never reach their God promised Canaan of their dreams. Colonialism and Christianity like globalization and democracy came to Africa simultaneously. In fact, the two aid each other in ''Christianizing '' and dominating the indigenous peoples. The partnership of colonialism and Christianity is well expressed in one of David Livingstone's letters, discussed by John Kirk:

'That you may have a clear idea of my objects, I may state that they have more in them than meets the eye. They are not merely exploratory, for I go with the intention of benefiting both the African and my own countrymen. I take a practical mining geologist to tell of the mineral resources of the country, an economic botanist to give full report of the vegetable productions, an artist to give the scenery, a naval officer to tell of the capacity of river communications, a moral agent to lay a Christian foundation for anything that may follow. All this machinery has for its ostensible object the development of African trade and promotion of civilization; but what I can tell none but such as you, in whom I have confidence, is this. I hope it may result in an English colony in the healthy high lands of Central Africa.'

Over the past decade there has been a renewed imperial interest by the US but the US quest has unfortunately been met by setbacks mainly due to the fact that their colonial methodology in  contradistinction with China's collaborative approach are devasting to the existence of African freedom parties. The west has come with regime change models while China on the one hand has been bent on collaborating with nationalist regimes in Africa. To the African nationalist regimes China's colonial model is mature and not as radical and demeaning as that of the west.