Beijing turns its back on embattled Robert Mugabe ( Zimbabwe )

The Times ^ | September 19, 2007 | Jane Macartney

[george76]

China has bowed to economic reality and political expediency by calling a halt to aid to Zimbabwe.

One of the few remaining friends to President Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s embattled leader, China has been quietly allowing the relationship to cool over the past few months. But Li Guijin, China’s special envoy for Africa, confirmed yesterday that Beijing had halted development aid. “China’s assistance is mainly humanitarian. In terms of development assistance, we have some difficulties,” he said.

“China in the past provided substantial development assistance but owing to the dramatic currency revaluations and rapid deterioration of economic conditions, the economic outcomes of these projects have not been so good.”

The decision deals a heavy blow to a country where unemployment is 80 per cent, inflation hit 7,600 per cent in July and the value of the Zimbabwean dollar on the black market recently fell to 500,000 to the pound.

China’s continued aid could have served as a lifeline to Mr Mugabe’s Government. And its decision to end years of government investment must have involved much soul-searching for a country eager to present itself as an unconditional friend of Africa and one that does not impose conditions on its loans and investment.

President Hu Jintao excluded the country from a tour of several African countries this year. Beijing may have begun to feel international pressure ...

With the Olympic Games less than a year away China may not want to be associated with a state leader regarded by many nations as a pariah...

[Billthedrill]

I've seen estimates of what subsidizing Cuba for all those years cost the Soviet Union, and they'd make a despot's hair curl. China knows (1) it isn't getting any better in Zimbabwe, (2) it is getting more expensive, and (3) that whatever strategic value that train wreck of a country may have had isn't balancing well against what it will cost to maintain it.

It doesn't mean they're going away, it only means they're not buying whatever Mugabe has left to sell. Cold old world, innit?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks G76.

The decision deals a heavy blow to a country where unemployment is 80 per cent, inflation hit 7,600 per cent in July and the value of the Zimbabwean dollar on the black market recently fell to 500,000 to the pound.

But other than that, everything is great!

Prediction -- Chavez and Castro will step in.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Megalomania.

[Max in Utah]

In pre 1900s Zimbabwe would of been ripped apart by civil war or invaded by a neighbor by now. I don’t understand todays world. How does a failed nation, stay nation for this long?

Because no one else wants the place.