The Washingtonian’s View

I never really gave much thought to what China thought about the situation in Zimbabwe. At a symposium covering Russian nationalism [at John Hopkins University], I overheard two men talking about the election situation in Zimbabwe and the United States. One of the guys said that China is even getting into the fray. I said, “What role is China playing?” The older man said, “China is shipping arms to President Mugabe. They obviously are working together.”

I responded, “You have to look at the whole picture, before you come t oa conclusion.” He then said, “I have looked at everything and I am telling you that China and Zimbabwe are working together.”

So while this panel from the Russian Embassy was talking about the new direction of nationalism, I couldn’t shake that gentleman’s determination out of my head. He was convienced that the two countires were on the same side.

Afterwards, I asked the gentleman what lead him to such a conclusion. He said he caught something about the shipment of arms being sent to Zimbabwe on Fox News Channel.

My first response was to get on the job and check the information out myself. It turned out that the man at the symposium was half right. Zimbabwe and China did have an arrangement of arms to be bought between the two nations.

I thought the man’s remarks were unusual because China (a nation that has it’s own criticism of it’s government over its own human rights record) is greatly worried about its reputation ahead of the upcoming Summer Olympics. China understands that doing business in that area (selling arms) to Zimbabwe would not be such a great idea.

The Asian giant has remarked that they are strongly looking into turning around a ship full of arms bound for its longtime ally.

Since Tuesday the ship has been docked at Durban, South Africa. The problem there is South African dock workers have refused to offload the nearly 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and thousands of rounds of rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. From me reaching out to various embassies in the city, the majority say that the citizens of southern Africa do not endorse the actions that have taken place in Zimbabwe. I also discovered that Mozambique, Angola, and Namibia have also said the ship is not welcome in their ports.

The majority says President Mugabe’s iron-fisted handling of his domestic opposition in the March 29 elections – where Mugabe’s party fared badly in parliamentary elections and where the presidential results have still not been released – is not respected.

But I guess the guy might have been more right than I wanted to give him credit for. By talking to people at the Zimbabwean Embassy I discovered that China and Zimbabwe had been long time friends.

In the 10 years of warring with the white-dominated government of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe’s former name), China that supplied Mugabe’s ZANU-PF liberation army with arms, training, logistics, and funding.

The international back and forth over the arms shipment illustrates the pitfalls of China’s growing involvement in Africa, and its difficulties in avoiding domestic African politics.

COSATU, the South African trade union confederation whose members refused to offload the Chinese weapons, has long complained about the way cheap Chinese imports have destroyed jobs in the South African textiles industry.

The shunned vessel has become an international embarrassment to China.