WHEN President Barack Obama hosts invited African leaders early next month what will, no doubt, be worrying him at the back of his mind is the continued cordial relationship between China and Zimbabwe.
President Mugabe has not been invited to the White House as part of the United States strategy to present Zimbabwe as an international leper to be isolated.
This isolation is further enhanced by the unjustified economic illegal sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe by the US and its Western allies.
And it looks like the US has no intention to relent.
By the time the first US-Africa leaders summit is held on August 5, President Obama will be painfully aware that only three weeks earlier, a high powered Chinese delegation will have visited Zimbabwe.
President Obama is aware that China is the fastest growing economy, soon to be the biggest in the world overtaking the United States itself.
And the fact that President Mugabe talked about the support by this economic giant in Zimbabwe’s economic revolution, must have demonstrated how futile attempts to ostracise this sovereign state were.
The recent visit by top officials of the Communist Party of China (CPC) must have served to confirm that the Chinese have remained our all-weather friends.
Only a few years ago, they were offering us guns to liberate ourselves.
Now that we have turned our swords into ploughshares, the Chinese are still at the forefront in their bid to see to it that we prosper, this time on the economic field.
Why can’t we?
After all, the natural resources that were being plundered by our colonisers are now ours and these we can now use as a guarantee to our friends that their assistance won’t be given gratis.
So far, there is growing optimism that Zimbabwe will receive substantial funding from China in its effort to successfully implement Zim-ASSET.
The bilateral talks going on, both on the Zimbabwean and Chinese soils which will culminate in the visit of President Mugabe to China in response to an invitation by the Chinese authorities should see the concluding of lucrative investment packages.
This would be a natural sequel to the promise in May by Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Lin Lin, that his country would avail a funding package for Zim-ASSET.
But it should be realised that it is not only China which is prepared to do business with Zimbabwe.
The European Union (EU) with Belgium taking the lead now want the illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe removed.
This is only sensible.
What is the logic of punishing a Government which has been supported by more than two thirds of its population in democratic elections?
The United States will soon find itself fighting a lone battle.
There is no justification whatsoever why President Obama is still sticking to his regime change agenda offering the false excuse that he is trying to ‘liberate’ the Zimbabwean people from ‘Mugabe’s dictatorship’.
Zimbabwe is a principled and peaceful sovereign state with no intention to interfere with the internal affairs of other states.
America should not begrudge us for laws passed to ensure the equitable distribution of our own natural resources.
The Chinese don’t.
Europe is of late realising the same.
Zimbabwe is not a leper and it’s high time America, whose economy is rapidly being overtaken by China, abandon its futile attempt to ostracise our country.