The New Government of Zimbabwe: A Distant Relationship with China?

Diana Ninoshka Castillo Morales

Global Politics Review
Vol. 6, no. 1-2 (2020): 114-124.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4335450
GPR ID: 2464-9929_v06_i1-2_p114
Received: October 6, 2020. Accepted: December 7, 2020. Published: December 21, 2020

ABSTRACT: Given the sanctions imposed by Western countries, the government of Robert Mugabe characterized Zimbabwe’s foreign policy as an explicit rejection of the political conditions of the West and searched to establish economic and political relationships with other countries, such as China. However, by contrast with Mugabe’s government, the presidency of Emmerson Mnangagwa has been promoting an active foreign policy intending to reengage with the West, particularly with the European Union and the United States. Is it because the economic relationship with China has failed to provide benefits to the Zimbabwean society? Does the change of administration represent a shift in Zimbabwe’s foreign policy and its relationship with China? Or does the current presidency of Zimbabwe see the Western and China as two complementary and strategic partners? This article argues that even if the current government will try to reengage with the West as part of its national strategy of economic development, that does not mean that Zimbabwe intends to distance itself from the People’s Republic of China because it has proved to be a strategic political and economic partner for more than fifty years now.

Keywords:  China, Zimbabwe, United States, foreign policy, sanctions, foreign direct investment.

Copyright by the Author. This is an Open Access article licensed by Global Politics Review under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License Creative Commons License.

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