Why China is frowning on Zimbabwe

The current historic visit by the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Angola sends heavy-duty signals to Africa and the world at large regarding China's new preferences. The renewed Chinese interests in the African region reflect carefully cherry-picked friends deemed serious trading partners. A while ago, Zimbabwe was a potentially sound trading partner and could have been among those topping the Chinese list but is now being carefully dropped for some screaming reasons.

The unimpeded corruption, the depressing multi-currency agenda, the declining tax revenue base, absence of regulatory compliance mechanisms and wanton profligacy by the ruling authorities is a direct put off to any global partner who may want to think of engaging Zimbabwe at the moment. No trading partner would want to risk working with a broken system that does not account for its own actions and fiscal policies. Given the salary scandals that we just passed through, the ordinary man on the street could be forgiven for actually believing that any aid to Zimbabwe could directly be pocketed by individuals (and without consequence) hence the skepticism.

While many feel betrayed by the Chinese as they ask for security on amounts loaned, they belong to the same camp of skeptics. First of all, the Chinese are a hardworking, no nonsense lot. Their economy says it. With such hard won buoyancy, they are on top of the world as their GDP reflects. Being a global leader comes with lots of commitment, hard work, honesty and demonstrable utilization of resources to promote direct foreign investment. The Chinese are riding at the crest of the wave of success by the hour because they are wise in their choice of trading partners. They also remain aware of their interests. The construction of the KK neighborhood (a mini city) close to Luanda in Angola was not by coincidence. It was a way to curry favors with the local citizenry. Besides that, they remain aware of which global partners to consider on a serious note. That is why some nations feel abused as some feel they have a great working relationship with China.  

Secondly, it's a cliché that before one expects to be respected, (s)he must first of all respect oneself. Zimbabwe leaders are now crying foul over the Chinese because they feel China is not doing enough for the struggling economy. With the demand for security for loans, the relations have been compromised. The truth is that the Chinese could have been pushed into such a stance after reviewing a Cost-Benefit Analysis and realizing the potential risk of doing serious business with Zimbabwe. The recent Guinness Book of records type of salary scandals in Zimbabwe created an enigma for the Zimbabwe image. It sounded bizarre for such a struggling nation to afford paying such million dollar annual salaries to  under-performing Zimbabwean Executives. The situation was worsened when the Zimbabwean leadership initially threatened journalists trying to expose the corruption and then shifted gears and ruled that the bizarre salaries were not fraudulent as they were a creation of legal employment contracts. With that diaphanous justification, no exemplary measures were ever publicly implemented to demonstrate remorse or toughness to handle such abrasive infraction of ethics. In the same vein, a few weeks later, our poor nation had the guts to extend a begging bowl to the UK to try and secure funds for primary school education for the disadvantaged children. It clearly became ironic that our system had enough millions for salaries for non-productive government entity executives and yet was running dry on public education funds. Such a stance alone compromised our national image regarding our needs and priorities.

Thirdly, the Chinese could be in Nigeria because of oil resources. The same applies to Angola. I am not sure what brings them to Kenya or Ethiopia. Still with such clues, nations like Angola are sending a serious message on the symbiosis theme. They are willing to meet halfway with the Chinese on trading relations as they use their oil to get their infrastructure revamped. They are openly indicating business acumen and promoting visible growth as appreciated by ordinary citizens. In Zimbabwe we have so much promise on natural resources. Then we had diamonds. If we had not preferred corruption, we could have had a bargaining chip with which to approach the trading table with the Chinese for the betterment of our nation at large. Interestingly, diamond funds did not do much to bail out our economy as some individuals benefitted from the resource. The rest is now history as we are back to square one trying to tuck in our shirts and pull up our socks and smile to the West as good boys.

The only lesson learnt through this experience is that we need to be a bit more serious on resource management. If we cut back on corruption and nab the culprits, then the world could respect us a bit. For now our lackadaisical stance on corruption and poor resource management is making us lose credibility. It becomes worse when our leadership stays mum on critical issues like corruption and how to eliminate it from the ground instead of the hotel lobby microphone. Normally, most major national scandals in Zimbabwe have died a natural death. That stance has just helped the world to gauge us on our economic agenda and credit rating. As if that is not already enough of a problem, we have defaulted on our IMF loans. In that "fat eat thin" survival scenario all our efforts have been channeled to a pursuit of social class and self-enrichment agenda.

With that looming corruption and liquidity crunch, our dismal situation has triggered our very trusted national friend China to demand security for loans or let us sink.

Tapiwa Kapurura writes in a personal capacity.