The Impact Sino-Zimbabwe Bilateral Diplomatic Relations on Economic and Political development from 2008-2016

ABSTRACT

The bilateral diplomatic relations of Zimbabwe and China re surfaced in a crucial time of economic

and international politics hardship for Zimbabwe. This has caused too much expectation from the

Zimbabweans and serious bargain allegations on China from these relations. This has led to a number

of people including the international arena questioning the relevance or rather importance of these

bilateral relations. Therefore, the focus of the study is on the impact of bilateral diplomatic relations

between China and Zimbabwe from 2008 to 2016. The problem surrounding these relations include

misunderstanding by the public on what really the relationship nature is like, most people would take

it as China trying to aiding Zimbabwe when in actual fact the relations are designed to mutually

benefit both parties business wise, the damage that China is trying to heal on Zimbabwe is kind of

underrated and also the media exaggerates what really the relations are yielding positively or

negatively. A literature/document review was done to find what other scholars say concerning the

relations between China and Zimbabwe with the aim of identifying some literature gaps and areas that

need contribution. Other countries like Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa were observed to have the

same bilateral relations with China though their results are not entirely identical to those of

Zimbabwe. The objective of the study is to find what inspired the Sino-Zimbabwe relations, the

rationale of the relations, to analyse the development that has taken place and assessing the impact of

the relations with the aim of proffering some recommendations. To satisfy the objectives, focus group

discussions from the ordinary citizens on whom the impact of the relations reflects vividly was

conducted and questionnaires distributed. The respondents raised issues such as corruption,

monopolisation of deals, lack of grass root support to be the reasons for negative impact the Sino-

Zimbabwe relations have. Much appreciation was to the positive impact where the respondents

acknowledged how even the poorest of the people can afford life through cheaper goods, how these

relations have blocked further sanctions to be imposed and foreign direct investment from China is

somehow sustaining the economy. The researcher then concluded that bilateral relations can impact

more positively given that the government of Zimbabwe amends its economic and political

development policies as well as manage the funds efficiently. Recommendations prior to the

improvement of how the relations are done were given and these were: involvement of the ordinary

citizens in developmental policy making because they know exactly what happens on the ground so

that the relations gain grass root support, to have public reports on financial audit especially for the

loans and investment from these relations for the sake of transparency, policy review and adjustments

and effectively dealing with corruption so as to assure the public that compliance with law is also their

main concern. The research paper is in five chapters which are: chapter one Introduction (background

of the study, justification of the study, statement of the problem, limitation and delimitations, chapter

two Literature review and other country experience, chapter three Methodology (methods of data

collection), chapter four Presentation and analysis of findings and chapter five Conclusion and

recommendations.