Funding ZimAsset has become a brinkmanship and China blinked first!

When it comes to the bankrolling of Mugabe’s ZimAsset plan, there has been a high-stakes brinkmanship game going on here between Mugabe and the Chinese; the latter have blinked first.  

When Mugabe came up with his hare-brain $27 billion ZimAsset plan, he knew he would probably fail to get any donor from the West to bankroll it but he was confident the Chinese would fund it. As far as he was concerned them the $27 billion he was asking for was small change compared to billions the Chinese were making from all the looting and plunder going on. Besides, Mugabe reasoned, the Chinese know they would lose their pole-position amongst the nations with unfettered looting and plundering rights to Zimbabwe’s resources if Zanu PF was to lose political power in Zimbabwe.

The Chinese, for their part, did not step up to bankrolling Mugabe’s hare-brain plan hoping others would be naïve enough to do so. When it was clear no one else would and Mugabe was turning the screw on them to finance the plan; the thought by holding-out they would force Mugabe to implement the economic reforms such as ending the corruption and scrapping the obnoxious indigenisation laws.

By the time Mugabe visited China last August, it was already a year into the five-years of the ZimAsset and Mugabe still did not have a single dollar in the begging bowl. To say he was desperate is an understatement. He must have thought the Chinese just wanted him beg and grovel and so he went to China with a begging bowl in one hand and kneeling pads in the other. Still the Chinese did not budge.

Make no mistake about it, the Chinese want Zanu PF to remain in office; it is no secret that they have helped Zanu PF rig elections in 2013 and in the past. The Chinese offered a one billion dollar sweetener if their man, V P Emmerson Mnangagwa was to succeed Mugabe, The Telescope reported. But offered nothing in budgetary support Mugabe was after.

Last month VP Mnangagwa was back in China to tell his Chinese handlers that if nothing was done to alleviate the worsening economic meltdown then there will be regime change in Zimbabwe because Zanu PF was losing its grip on power. With unemployment now at 90% plus, 76% living on less than $200 a months, etc. the economic consequence of the economic meltdown were now socially and politically unsustainable.

The Chinese have blinked first; they have decided to fund “bankable” ZimAsset projects and five experts from the Development and Reform Commission, the body credited with formulating and implementing China’s economic recovery under Chairman Deng Xiaoping. 

There is no question of China turning the Zimbabwe economy and repeat the same economic miracle of China, not without carrying out the economic reforms necessary to end the rampant corruption, scrapping the obnoxious indigenisation laws, etc. China is now involved in Zimbabwe to do all it can to prop up the Zimbabwe economy for the sole purpose of extending Zanu PF’s stay in power, with their man, Mnangagwa, at the helm; whilst they continue to loot and plunder the country’s resource.

As long as Zanu PF can be seen to be easing the economic meltdown the pressure on the party to accept the political reforms will be reduced. This is just kicking the tin can down the road since there will be no real economic recovery until the problems of corrupt, etc. are addressed. What Zimbabwe needs is to have all the democratic reforms implemented followed by the holding of free, fair and credible elections and stop wasting time. The people of Zimbabwe have good reasons to protest China’s time wasting antiques!

Zanu PF is imploding and it is not surprising that there are some people in that party who do not want VP Mnangagwa as next State President but know that he will be the next President if the Chinese are allowed to continue meddling in Zimbabwe’s internal affair to the extent of having the casting vote and veto on who should be President!

“Successionists claiming Zimbabwe is undergoing a Deng Xiaoping Moment are too ambitious and misguided,” commented Professor Jonathan Moyo. He was referring to VP Mnangagwa who has been doing his best to give the impression that the arrival of the Chinese experts is proof of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery.

“Zimbabwe ain't China!” Moyo menacingly warned.

Of course Professor Moyo is right; China has no right to interfere in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs. Professor Jonathan Moyo is as unscrupulous as the Chinese themselves; he will know all the dirty tricks they have employed in the past to help Mugabe and Zanu PF stay in power. The real question the Chinese must now answer it whether the additional time gained from propping up Mnangagwa is worth the risk of having all their dirty past brought out in the open but that is the price they will pay for crossing swords with the unscrupulous Professor Moyo.

It is bad enough for the nation to have to deal with its own corrupt and murderous tyrants without outsiders poking their noses into our own affairs as well! It is right and proper that the Chinese are told in no uncertain terms to fcuk off!