Is China's red carpet for Mnangagwa a thank you for allowing Chinese companies to plunder our natural resources?

My late father used to warn me: be careful, for those who act as your friends may, in fact, be using you.

When President Emmerson Mnangagwa takes his place among world leaders at China's Grand Victory Parade, many Zimbabweans may be tempted to feel a surge of pride. 

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Mnangagwa's spokesperson, George Charamba, wasted no time in painting the invitation to Beijing as a historic triumph, waxing lyrical about Zimbabwe's supposed distinction on the world stage. 

In his statement on X, he highlighted that the President was one of only two African heads of state personally invited to the Grand Victory Parade commemorating the end of the Second World War. 

Charamba emphasized the company Mnangagwa would keep - standing alongside global heavyweights such as Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and others - casting the occasion as a mark of prestige and international recognition.

Here is Zimbabwe being recognised, not ignored. 

Yet behind the pomp and pageantry lies a far darker reality. 

These invitations are not extended out of genuine respect for Zimbabwe's stature on the global stage. 

They are more akin to political favours, a symbolic "thank you" from Beijing to Harare for allowing Chinese companies to plunder our natural resources, trample our environment, and displace our people - all while our leaders look the other way.

The so-called "all-weather friendship" between Zimbabwe and China has always been framed as a win-win partnership. 

On paper, it is presented as solidarity between two nations that fought against colonialism and imperialism, united by a shared history of resistance. 

In practice, however, it more closely resembles the relationship of a horse and its rider. 

Zimbabwe, the horse, is paraded, flattered, and made to feel important, but it is China, the rider, that holds the reins, dictates the direction, and extracts the real benefit. 

What our leaders receive are symbolic rewards: invitations to Beijing's grand occasions, handshakes with powerful figures, and the illusion of international relevance. 

What Zimbabweans are left with, however, are destroyed livelihoods, polluted rivers, desecrated heritage sites, and communities stripped of land without fair compensation.

We do not need to look far to see how this dynamic plays out. 

Just days ago, reports emerged from Mashonaland West of villagers clashing with state authorities over a Chinese-backed cement project. 

Despite a High Court order halting the development, construction has continued. 

Families face displacement, grazing land is being swallowed, and fears abound of contamination of Kemureza Dam, which sustains thousands of people. 

Chiefs Nematombo and Dendera have raised their voices in protest, warning that food security and public health are at risk. 

Yet their concerns have been brushed aside, because this project has the direct blessing of the Presidency. 

Vice-President Kembo Mohadi, apparently acting on instructions from Mnangagwa himself, reportedly ordered local authorities to allocate 135 hectares of land to WHI-ZIM Construction Material Investments, a Chinese company, to build a massive cement plant and power station worth over US$1 billion.

This is not an isolated case. 

In Chegutu, another Chinese cement company has been brazenly disregarding court rulings while setting up its operations a mere few hundred metres from Bryden Country School. 

Parents, children, and teachers have been left in shock at the thought of heavy industry polluting their learning environment. 

The High Court had already intervened to stop the company from encroaching on communal land, but the company, emboldened by political protection, has carried on regardless. 

Villagers who dare resist find themselves arrested and charged. 

The law is turned upside down, with foreign investors shielded while citizens are criminalised for defending their ancestral land.

This blatant disregard for the rule of law should outrage every Zimbabwean. 

Nor are these isolated cases. 

Across the country, Chinese companies have left a trail of destruction and dispossession. 

In Mutoko, villagers have long decried granite mining operations that have not only displaced families but also scarred entire mountains, some of which carry deep cultural and spiritual significance. 

Sacred hills that once stood as symbols of ancestral heritage have been blasted away for export, reducing centuries of tradition to rubble. 

Near the Domboshava caves - an area renowned for its priceless rock paintings that tell the story of Zimbabwe's earliest peoples - mining activities have desecrated heritage landscapes, placing irreplaceable cultural treasures at risk. 

In Shurugwi, the picturesque Boterekwa Pass, once celebrated as one of the most breathtaking scenic routes in the country, has been mutilated beyond recognition by gold mining, its natural beauty sacrificed for quick profits. 

Likewise, Christmas Pass in Mutare, an iconic gateway into the eastern highlands, has been scarred by quarrying operations, destroying both its aesthetic and ecological value.

In Hwange, coal mining concessions granted to Chinese firms have resulted in polluted rivers and the displacement of communities living within protected areas, threatening both human life and wildlife in one of Zimbabwe's most fragile ecosystems. 

In Marange, diamonds were extracted at enormous human and environmental cost, with little to show for it in terms of local development. 

The same pattern repeats itself in Mashonaland East and Midlands, where lithium and chrome mining ventures have contaminated water sources and rendered agricultural land useless, undermining food security in already vulnerable communities. 

In several cases, sacred sites and burial grounds have been desecrated in the reckless rush for profit, with no regard for heritage or tradition. 

These are not unfortunate accidents of development - they are the predictable outcomes of a system in which investors are empowered to run roughshod over Zimbabweans, while government leaders provide political cover in exchange for their own fleeting benefits.

It reveals a state that has abdicated its duty to protect its people in favour of protecting foreign investors. 

The message is clear: as long as you are Chinese and bring capital, you can do as you please. 

You can ignore court orders, displace villagers, contaminate water sources, and undermine food security with impunity. 

The government will not only look away, it will actively facilitate your projects. 

And if the people resist, the state will unleash its coercive machinery to crush them.

Meanwhile, Mnangagwa basks in the glow of red-carpet treatment in Beijing. 

He will be photographed standing shoulder to shoulder with world leaders, projected at home as a man of international stature, a leader invited to the exclusive tables of the powerful. 

But what does this really signify? 

It is not Zimbabwe being recognised as an equal partner. 

It is Mnangagwa being rewarded for handing over the country's wealth and sovereignty in exchange for symbolic gestures. 

These invitations are China's way of saying: thank you for ensuring that our companies face no accountability. 

Thank you for giving us carte blanche access to your lithium, your gold, your chrome, your diamonds, your cement deposits. 

Thank you for letting us override your courts, your communities, and your traditional leaders. 

Thank you for ensuring that the ordinary Zimbabwean remains voiceless, powerless, and excluded.

There is no balance in this relationship. 

China takes, and Zimbabwe gives. 

China digs, and Zimbabwe is left with holes. 

China profits, and Zimbabwe's people are left with polluted rivers, ruined grazing land, and a state institutions that bend for the powerful but break the powerless. 

This is not partnership. 

It is exploitation wrapped in the language of solidarity. 

And the tragedy is that our own leaders are complicit, cheerleading the very processes that harm their people.

The horse-and-rider analogy could not be more apt. 

The rider steers and extracts value while the horse is fed just enough to keep moving. 

Mnangagwa and his government are given the illusion of global recognition, but Zimbabweans pay the price. 

A seat at a parade in Beijing is a poor trade for generations of livelihoods destroyed, ecosystems poisoned, and sovereignty eroded. 

The pomp in China masks the poverty and pain in Binga, Mutoko, Marange, Hurungwe, and Chegutu.

As Zimbabweans, we must see through the smoke and mirrors. 

We must recognise that our leaders' red-carpet appearances abroad mean little if they are purchased at the expense of our dignity, our land, and our future. 

An invitation to a military parade in Beijing is not a victory for Zimbabwe - it is a sign of how cheaply our sovereignty is being auctioned. 

And until we demand accountability, transparency, and the protection of our communities, the exploitation will continue, with our leaders smiling for the cameras while our country is reduced to a wasteland.

© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/