China’s political influence in Zimbabwe

The Financial Times interviewed DIIS senior researcher Luke Patey (subscription required)on China’s role in the recent departure of long-time political leader Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. The FT article chronicled the long all-weather friendship between China and Zimbabwe and events leading to Mugabe resigning from his 37-year rule of the southern African country. Some observers claim that Beijing played a role in the political change after a Zimbabwean military leader visited China in the days before Mugabe’s fall.

Patey cautioned against exaggerating Beijing’s role. Mugabe had lost China’s favour due to worsening economic conditions for Chinese investors, but it was the Zimbabwean military and a fluid political climate that sparked the change.

But China was demonstrating the growing pragmatism of its foreign policy in Africa. “If its interests go unharmed, China will adjust to the flow of political change,” said Patey. Other African dictators long supported by China, such as Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, might be taking note, he said. “Might your opponents persuade China to look the other way as you are pushed out the door?”