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Asha Rose Migiro

DAR ES SALAAM — The Chinese dream and African dream are two converged components because there are a lot of coalitions between China and Africa in realising their dreams, a former UN deputy chief said on Friday.

“As a fast-growing economy, China wants to see its people attaining sustainable development, creating an environment where Chinese people as individuals can realise their own dreams,” Asha- Rose Migiro, former deputy secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2012, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

Migiro said her understanding of the Chinese dream is that China is going to continue its efforts to increase the pace of economic growth, to ensure the re-sharing of the profits of economic growth and to ensure the social welfare of its people.

The Chinese dream, an outline unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Tanzania in March, represents China’s resolution to jointly ensure peace and promote development with Africa and the world and has received immense appeal in African countries.

The Chinese people are working hard to realise the Chinese dream of great national renewal, while the African people are committed to the African dream of gaining strength from unity and achieving development and rejuvenation, Xi said when speaking on China’s Africa policy at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Center in Dar es Salaam on March 25.

“The Chinese and African people should enhance unity, co-operation, mutual support and assistance so as to make our dreams come true. We should also work with the rest of the world to realize the dream of the world for enduring peace and common prosperity, and make new and even greater contribution to the noble cause of peace and development of mankind,” Xi said.

Migiro, who is now a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, said like the Chinese dream, the African dream is also a dream that is focused on the economic growth, sustainable development, social and economic welfare of its people.

“Africa is a continent that is faced with a lot of challenges. We are still struggling with the levels of poverty. We are struggling with the attainment of basic social services. We are struggling to get our people to increase their productivity so they can contribute to the economy,” she said.

“You can see when we are talking of dreams, we are talking of the same destination and the same common goals, probably using the different ways. So there’s convergence between the Chinese dream and African dream,” she said.

Migiro said while China is the second largest economy in the world, it still has a significant number of people who still face poverty challenges.

“(The) Chinese dream and African dream complement each other because we have come-and-goes … to ensure that we build prosperous societies, we build communities that are economically strong, we build communities that can live in peace politically and mutual respect for each other,” she said.

“All these are goals that the Chinese dream holds and African dream holds,” she said. “This can be further promoted because we see that we’re all working towards delivering, towards getting results. So I think this is a common ground of the Chinese dream and African dream.”

On the influence of the Chinese dream on the world, Migiro said the significance of the Chinese dream is that it sets out a vision for not only what type of China that the Chinese want, but also what type of the world that the Chinese want.

“The Chinese dream wants a better life for its people, so the Chinese dream goes beyond, it’s a dream for the world, and which means what President Xi Jinping and his government want to see is prosperity the world over,” she said.

“It could be through bilateral relationships, it could be through multilateral relationships. But truly what I understand to be the Chinese dream is the Chinese dream for the Chinese people and for the world,” she added.

When talking about the opportunity which the Chinese dream can provide for Africa, Migiro said it is for Africa to make use of the advancement that China has made.

She said that in the 1960s when most African countries got their independence, many African countries and China were facing the same challenges — poverty, disease, ignorance, and so on.

“But China has now advanced much more than we have. So we have to learn how did they do it. Despite the big population size that they have, we see that China is advancing technologically, what is that we can learn,” said the professor.

“What is important for me personally, and maybe for many other people that are watching closely, is that China has been able to make these advancements while maintaining a very strong cultural fabric,” she said.

“China is very rich in its culture,” Migiro said. “We have visited China, we have met with Chinese people, they have advanced so much, but they still maintain a strong culture…we think that culture which also defines social relationships and social attitudes has got an important role to play when you are going through changes in development.”

“For us as Tanzanians and as Africans, culture is very important because culture embodies the values of the people. So we want to see ourselves making progress without compromising our good cultural practices and values. This is what we can learn from China,” she said. – Xinhua.