Chinese President Hu Jintao faces a delicate task this week when he visits copper-rich Zambia, where anti-Chinese sentiment is riding high amid fears Beijing is moving to colonise the local economy. Zambian officials say Hu’s visit, which begins tomorrow, will spur trade and foreign investment.
Mining Minister Kalombo Mwansa said: “It’s important because China is investing heavily in our copper mines, agriculture and manufacturing sectors.â€
But Zambia has also seen some of Africa’s most public expressions of unease over China’s power, with a riot at a Chinese-owned mine over pay and the opposition party alleging a sell-out.
“They are out to colonise Africa economically and also to get Africa’s solidarity at the United Nations,†said Guy Scott, the general secretary of the opposition Patriotic Front, which narrowly lost elections last year after running on an openly anti-China platform.
“Unfortunately, we cannot stop them and they will get what they want from Africa because they offer aid without conditions.â€
Hu’s trip to Zambia dropped a planned stop in the Copperbelt region, apparently out of fears he might be targeted by protesting families of workers who died in a 2005 explosion at a Chinese-owned mine.
Zambian officials say overall the country is sure to profit from its relationship with China and are positioning the country to serve as a “base†for China’s regional economic strategy.
To smooth Chinese and other foreign investment, the town of Chambishi, 420km north of the capital Lusaka, will be “declared a free economic zone†in step with Hu’s visit, Zambian officials said.
Claims that more Chinese investment will create jobs and help modernise infrastructure ring hollow for some, including the Patriotic Front (PF). While the PF failed to unseat President Levy Mwanawasa or his ruling party in last year’s polls, it won considerable support around the country, due in part to its accusations that Chinese firms underpay and mistreat their Zambian wo
Zambia is poised to have a maize surplus this season but it is still unlikely that the food will reach many of the 58 percent of Zambians that are classified as extremely poor. The ministry of agriculture recently released a national food balance sheet showing that the country will have a surplus of 160,000 metric tonnes of maize during the 2006/07. In the 2005/06 season the output was 63 percent above the previous season and 54 percent above the five-year average.
Zambia’s anti-corruption drive is failing because the government has been concentrating its resources on investigating the corrupt practices of the previous regime, allowing present graft in the public service to flourish, a corruption watchdog said in its latest report. Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Indices [CPI] has consistently ranked Zambia as one of the most corrupt countries since 2001.
In a stirring speech punctuated with applause, Zambia’s former leader Kenneth Kaunda set the tone Monday for Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha centenary commemoration here by lashing out at the US and Britain for unleashing a war in Iraq.Kaunda, who mesmerised the packed Vigyan Bhavan auditorium here with his powerful speech that ended with a song to purge Africa from the scourge of AIDS, asked all those funding terrorism to channel the money to fight tuberculosis and AIDS.