People's Republic of China and The Soviet Union
The People's Republic of China supported Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union while the Soviet Union supported Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union, competing militant Marxist organizations that sought an end to Rhodesia and the establishment of a one-party Communist state in its place. The PRC's initial investment in Mugabe has continued. China has invested more in Zimbabwe than any other nation with 35 companies spending over $600 million USD. The close economic relationship between Zimbabwe and China is partly driven by sanctions imposed by Western nations in response to the Zimbabwean government's "continued human rights abuses."
Li Ke, China's Vice-Minister for Economic Relations, visited Zimbabwe for 13 days in September 1980. Mugabe visited China on 13 October and met with Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang.
In June or July 2006 the Zimbabwean government secretly bought Chinese rifles, bullets, anti-riot gear and other military equipment in return for 30 tons of ivory, violating the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species which forbids the sale of ivory. Interpol and CITES, an ivory-watchdog organization, are investigating the sale. The Zimbabwean government bought six military aircraft from China in 2005 and another six aircraft from three Chinese firms on 23 August 2006. Two days later the Zimbabwe National Army said it bought 127 trucks for $1.2 million.
The Chinese government donated farm machinery worth $25 million to Zimbabwe on 21 April, including 424 tractors and 50 trucks, as part of a $58 million loan to the Zimbabwean government. The Mugabe administration previously seized white-owned farms and gave them to blacks, damaging machinery in the process. In return for the equipment and the loan the Zimbabwean government will ship 30 million kilograms of tobacco to the People's Republic of China immediately and as much as 80 million kilograms over the next five years. John Nkomo, Speaker of the House of Assembly of Zimbabwe, praised China's investment on 24 April 2007 during a state dinner in Harare held during the four-day visit of Jia Qinglin, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, to Zimbabwe. Misheck Sibanda, the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Edna Madzongwe, President of the Senate, cabinet ministers, and legislators from both ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change attended the dinner.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Relations Of Zimbabwe
Famous quotes containing the words soviet union, people, republic, china, soviet and/or union:
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“At no time in history ... have the people who are not fit for society had such a glorious opportunity to pretend that society is not fit for them. Knowledge of the slums is at present a passport to society—so much the parlor philanthropists have achieved—and all they have to do is to prove that they know their subject. It is an odd qualification to have pitched on; but gentlemen and ladies are always credulous, especially if you tell them that they are not doing their duty.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not of men.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Riot in Algeria, in Cyprus, in Alabama;
Aged in wrong, the empires are declining,
And China gathers, soundlessly, like evidence.
What shall I say to the young on such a morning?—
Mind is the one salvation?—also grammar?—
No; my little ones lean not toward revolt.”
—William Dewitt Snodgrass (b. 1926)
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Visitors who come from the Soviet Union and tell you how marvellous it is to be able to look at public buildings without advertisements stuck all over them are just telling you that they can’t decipher the cyrillic alphabet.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)