US Joins Look-East Policy For Survival: Mugabe

The Zanu-PF leader who is in Bulawayo for the former ruling party’s ongoing conference, made the remarks at Ascot during the commissioning of the NetOne Broadband and the NetOne Ascot Mobile Switching Centre and Packet Switch Call, where he was the guest of honour.

The mobile phone operator’s switching centre covering Matabeleland, Midlands and Masvingo provinces is a result of a US $45  million loan facility extended to Zimbabwe by the Chinese government.

“The United States is not able to pay; to repay the loans or debts that it has acquired over time, so it is an indebted country and indebted to the extent now that there is great unemployment in the United States that there are bore-holes in the routes of several cities,” said Mugabe.

“I am not saying things out of my mind or in order to denigrate the United States, but these are facts. They are realities that they themselves have published. Some of their municipalities cannot repair their roads. That is the fall of a great nation,” he said while drawing laughter from the crowd.

He hailed Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy saying the Southern African country did well by cutting economic ties with the West which he said was also looking to countries like China for economic survival.

“It (the Look East Policy) has indicated that we were right in turning our back to the West in looking to the East. Indeed those in the West, the so-called great powers are now, or have long ago turned to the East also,” explained Mugabe.

“They are now asking for economic sustenance and propping up of their economies by the People’s Republic of China. China as you know has 1.3 trillion dollars invested in the United States by way of bonds and if they were to withdraw, the United States would collapse in a day,” he added.

Mugabe said China would soon become more economically powerful than the United arguing it does not have the same problems America has today.

He paid tribute to the Asian country, which he described as Zimbabwe’s “all weather friends” for financially supporting a number of projects in the country.

Mugabe added that the “unjustified” economic sanctions on Zimbabwe had affected the country’s advancement as an economy, adding the former British colony had been struggling to access partnerships from the international community to assist in its economic endeavors.

Nicholas Goche –Transport Telecommunications and Infrastructural Development Minister – Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Xing Shunkang, representatives of Huawei, a Chinese company that set up telecommunications structure, were among the invited guests to the historic occasion.