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John Sigauke Correspondent
China is undisputedly our greatest trading partner and as Zimbabweans, we cherish that economic relationship. Our all weather friendship dates back to the 1960s when Zimbabwe was engaged in a bitter war with the settler regime. China has done a lot for Zimbabwe at a time when the United States and the West imposed illegal sanctions on the latter over a bilateral disagreement with Britain.

Zimbabwe embarked on a programme to redress the skewed land ownership structure left behind by the apartheid British. This affirmative action angered the British, who in turn roped in their allies in the European bloc to slap Zimbabwe with the illegal sanctions.

It was China which assisted and is still assisting Zimbabwe to bust the sanctions. Mega deals have been signed which should be set in motion by the visiting Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping.

The massive turn up of Zimbabweans to welcome him is a show that they appreciate China’s assistance. It is also an indication that Zimbabweans pin their hopes on him for the revival of their economy.

Already he has praised our efforts to turn around the economy through the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset). However, assistance from China and the cordial political and economic ties between the two countries rile the West and US.

They would have wanted to see Zimbabwe collapsing under their evil sanctions. The mega deals that have been signed were widely publicised, which in my opinion lacks economic prudence. By publicising such deals, we are exposing ourselves to our adversaries.

We are arming them with tactics to counter our economic strategies. One thing that we must know is that we are in an economic war with the West. In a war, it is reckless to divulge your war tactics to an enemy.

Armed with information about your tactics, it becomes easy for the adversaries to counter and attack you. This is the case we have in Zimbabwe. We have been too excited about the deals that are being signed by China.

The actions that we take out of that excitement, to a larger extent, are arming our adversaries with the necessary information to counter our sanctions-busting strategies. The media has been awash with stories that exposed our proposed deals with China, Russia and many other friends from the East. The best strategy is to keep the lid on the deals up until they have come to fruition.

People, especially those from the West, must only come to know about in the final stage of implementation. They must see results on the ground not the present situation whereby the media, even global ones, give a blow by blow update of the deals from the signing ceremonies.

The private media have been demonising Zimbabwe with a view to scuttling these deals.

They exaggerated factionalism in zanu-PF with the intention of scaring away potential investors. The world, especially China and Russia, has been fed exaggerated stories about the succession battle in the ruling party. As if they care, they falsely warned these countries that the political situation in Zimbabwe threatens their business interests.

It’s fortunate that Cde Xi can see the situation in Zimbabwe for himself and probably compare with the one he has been fed by the detractor’s media. For now, Zimbabwe must desist from the megaphone diplomacy. As the Chinese leader is in the country, we counsel closed doors meetings with him. The public, through the media should only be fed with basic information.

We have seen hundreds of journalists flowing into Zimbabwe to cover Cde Xi’s visit. Some of these journalists come with a hidden agenda in their sleeve. Although it is impossible to hide this information from the media and the West, at least the leakage must be minimised.