Extraordinary friend

Sat, 10 Jun 2017 08:46:04 +0000

AS ZAMBIANS we must count ourselves lucky to be among China’s most trusted and beloved friends. It is a God-sent opportunity cemented in history but which we must nurture with gratitude and responsibility.

It is rare that two senior Chinese officials can visit a country at the same time as what has happened in Zambia’s case this week.

A special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jiping, State Counsellor Wang Yong, has been in the country for a few days together with Chinese deputy Foreign Affairs minister Zang Ming. These two distinguished emissaries have held talks with President Lungu at State House and bring with them a bounty of good news for all Zambians.

As a result of their joint visit, the Chinese and Zambian governments signed several key bilateral agreements which include the 2016 economic and technical agreement grant of 200 million Chinese yen to upgrade the Levy Mwanawasa General Hospital into a second university teaching hospital.

The revamping of the hospital will see the enrolment of a staggering 3,000 medical students per year. This is in addition to the fact that Levy Mwanawasa hospital is currently a centre of medical excellence where a large contingent of Chinese medical experts are conducting tele-medicine by analysing and treating complicated illnesses among patients in Zambia using sophisticated technology and equipment in China.

To add icing on the cake, China has agreed to help Zambia by constructing a multi-million dollar conference centre to host the African Union (AU) summit in Lusaka in 2022. Our Chinese friends looked at the Mulungushi Conference Centre and concluded we shall only embarrass ourselves to host such an event at Mulungushi.

They then decided they could save us the blushes and the expense by building us a state-of-the-art conference facility which would last another 20 years still looking great. We could afterwards use it to make money as a tourist conferencing destination.

As President Lungu remarked to Mr Wang, ‘‘What more can you ask from a friend?’’

The bilateral agreements included the establishment by China of national milling plants in Monze, Mpika and Lusaka to supplement the several hundred solar mills China has supplied to help the rural masses escape the ever-rising prices of mealie-meal.

Zambia is also talking to China to rehabilitate and modernise the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, TAZARA, which has deteriorated over the years and badly needs a new injection of rolling stock, rebuilding of the rail line and new coaches to take advantage of the massive opportunities presenting themselves within COMESA and SADC as a cheaper and reliable transport option.

To crown it all, Chinese enterprises, egged on and financially guaranteed by their own government, have invested more than US $3 billion in Zambia over the past few years in agriculture, mining, real estate, trade and industry. Indeed, what a friend China!

This is a huge investment ploughed into developing African state of only 15 million people. It tells the story of a true friend who has come to stay and wants this country change for the better. One wonders how many countries in Africa would not stake part of their inheritance to receive that kind of money from Chin or anyone else.

It is for this reason that we should regard China as sister republic, perhaps more than we consider Zimbabwe, DR Congo or South Africa. The best way to forge bilateral relations and co-operation is to anchor it on people-to-people. As citizens we must have natural love and kind consideration for Chinese nationals living in our country.

They are people like ourselves. They make mistakes as we do. Perhaps it would be appropriate to understand their attitude and behaviour while in Zambia. They can be forgiven to think they are in a province of China.

When they trespass our laws let us treat them with extraordinary leniency. Rounding them up, throwing them is jail and deporting them the following day may not be the best way to treat a friend. Let’s just teach them to do thing better and look the other way. 

We owe them a lot.