INTRODUCTION:
The combination of three-week tour and a series of seminars on China’s economic reforms have constituted an eye-opener to me on the country’s leaps and bounds in its socio-economic development.
Lectures from top flight scholars from our hosts, Zhejiang Normal University and other universities across the country on the three-phase economic reforms (from 1949-78; 1978-86 and from 1986 to the present day) gave me an insight on what can be achieved by any country under the sun as long as it has well-worked out economic plans that are arrived at through collective decision-making process and are closely supervised, during implementation, by visionary and well focused leadership.
As Chinese professors took us through one lecture after another, focusing on one stage of their country’s development after another, I would time and again reflect on my own country’s (Tanzania) socio-economic development and was able to pin-point, with precision, where we went wrong!
Indeed, if there is anything I have learnt from my visit to China, it is the knowledge on what we should have done to bring about the right economic development for our country!
And perhaps more importantly, what we ought to do, and that would certainly depend on a very big if-that is, if my leaders back home were forced by some ‘powers’ to listen to me after my visit to China!
Before I came to China barely a few weeks ago, as my country was and continues to inch towards its 50 year independence annivesary to be marked on December 9th 2011, it was an open secret to me that for years, we have economically not been doing well.
But the million dollar question was why and how could we have done better.
But now, the foregoing question has at last been answered after getting a series of insightful lectures laced up with sight-seeing that were organized in such a way that they complimented the lectures we had had.
The learning side apart, the impressions I had had over China before I left Tanzania were such that one could simply describe them as nothing more than confusion.
And the West and its powerful media in particular was, to a greater part, to blame for my lopsided picture on China!
For a start, I strongly believed that the Chinese did not believe in the existence of God!
Interestingly, it took me less than two days, after my arrival in China to discover that that Chinese believed in God, that what I had all along been fed was nothing but sheer propaganda!
The truth stared me in the face during the first African-China Think Tank meeting when I found myself sitting side by side with a Chinese teenager who was not only a journalist, but also a Catholic! (I’m also a Catholic).
And as days went by, I discovered that as far as religions were concerned, China was not different from any country in the world!
This just goes to show why China would have to do a lot of work in order to get rid of bad image that is spread the world over by Western media institutions, of course, for economic reasons.
LESSONS LEARNT:
Before embarking on implementation of its economic reforms after its success against the Japanese who had for years occupied their country in 1949, the Chinese leadership under the Communist Party reviewed their country’s socio-economic problems and came up with answers to the problems.
Solution to their problems took the form of economic reforms that were implemented in phases and at the end of every phase, a review on problems that had been encountered was made with the express purpose of dealing with the problems.
The foregoing approach was not done in my country, much as Tanzania had attempted to come up with its own economic development (and like China, with Tanzania’s characteristics) through what came to be known as Vijiji vya Ujamaa, villagisation programme, under the policy of Socialism and Self-Reliance launched in 1967.
Whilst the CPC fixed problems after every phase, hence improving further the country’s economic development through reforms, my country did nothing until it reached a point where many believed that the Ujamaa policy had failed!
One of the main differences between China and Tanzania in their implementation of their respective economic policies was that while the former ensured that the entire leadership was involved in decision-making, the latter’s decion-making process was nothing but nominal, lacking collectiveness and hence ownership!
What is worse, while the CPC leadership made sure that every facet of its leadership was focused on reforms, in my country the absence of focus finally gave rise to a crack in the leadership with some of the leaders pursuisuing, secretly, different agendas that included, among others, corruption!
Therefore while the founding father, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere remained committed to the Ujamaa Policy, his lieutenants were not, hence reducing him to a lone ranger!
The cracks among the leadership finally widen into valleys when Mwalimu stepped down late in 1985.
It did not take long for the newly elected leadership to jettison all that had helped in reducing the growth of the gap between the haves and have not, namely the leadership code.
For under the leadership code which was promulgated by what came to be known as the Arusha Declaration, it was taboo for any Tanzanian leader to mix politics with business.
What was more, heads of parastatal institutions, private companies and government departments could equally not involve themselves in business.
However, the second phase leadership under President Ali Hassan Mwinyi jettisoned the leadership code in 1992, hence allowing Tanzanian leaders to mix politics and business and thereby giving birth to corruption!
It is important to note that once Tanzanian leaders were allowed to involve themselves in business, they used their political positions in enriching themselves through the use of their offices!
And by the time of writing this report, Tanzania is the third most corrupt nation in East Africa, after Kenya and Uganda, according to a survey conducted by the Transparency International (TI) on behalf of the recently established East African Bribery Index (EABI)!
In 2010, Tanzania held the fourth position in the East African Community, EAC, after Kenya, Uganda and Burundi.
Burundi is presently fourth while Rwanda remains in its fifth position under the EABI in the EAC.
And as if the jettisoning of the leadership code was not bad enough, later President Mwinyi introduced unrestricted liberalization coupled with uncontrolled privatisation that targeted the country’s over 400 parastatal organizations that had been established through tax payers’ money!
President Mwinyi’s decision to sell public institutions was a result of listening to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank economic restructuring policies!
It was thus not surprising that by the time Mwinyi left the stage in 1995, his regime had turned out into the most corrupt, collecting a mere 25bn/- (20m USD) per month!
And all these because unlike China, Tanzania lacked the presence of a strong ruling party that could have served as a beacon for the country’s leadership in the same way that the CPC has been doing.
The implementation of the IMF/WB economic restructuring policies could, in a way, be compared with the Soviet Union’s shock therapy carried out during Boris Yeltsin’s leadership!
While the Chinese leadership through their CPC had a well worked out leadership succession plan that ensured that whoever took up the mantle of leadership remained focused on the country’s economic (reforms) development from 1949 to present day; Tanzania can rightly be described as a country that has had two to three different leaderships, each with its own vision of economic development which differed from the other!
In short, much as the country is praised in Africa for having had peaceful leadership transition from the first phase under Mwalimu Nyerere to the present fourth phase of President Jakaya Kikwete, unfortunately each administration, with the exception of the first, has been playing its own economic tune to the detriment of the country’s socio-economic development!
And while the CPC has since the start of the implementation of its third phase in 1986 to 2006, supervised the transformation of China into a modern country, socially and economically, Tanzania has during the same period under review, been plunged from one economic disaster to another!
Lately, the country’s economic woes have been exacerbated by endless energy problems and lack of reliable railroad infrastructure!
What is very unfortunate about my country is that despite being the first in Africa to get the biggest Chinese assistance abroad, through the construction of the 1860km railroad from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia at the height of the liberation struggle in southern Africa, for inexplicable reasons, the Tanzanian leadership failed to make use of China’s assistance in linking Tazara to the rest of the railroads, especially after the breakup of the East African Community on February 6th 1977!
The breakup of the EAC had in fact presented the Tanzanian leadership with the golden opportunity of uprooting the central meter railroad and replacing it with a standard railroad gauge similar to the Tazara one whose gauge is the same with that in Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Had the Tanzanian leadership sought another soft loan from the Chinese government for upgrading the central railroad, Tanzania would not have been facing present infrastractural problems as far as the central railway line is concerned.
Again what we witness here is nothing but lack of both vision and focus on the part of the Tanzanian leadership!
Meanwhile International Western media have gone to town, describing Tazara as nothing more than a white elephant!
Yet the truth is that Zambia reverted back to the use of the southern rail route through South Africa’s Durban port following the Tanzanian government’s failure to deal with corruption at the Dar es Salaam port!
Personally, I have always maintained that the only way for making Tazara economically viable is for the Tanzanian government to link it with other network of railroads in the country instead of depending on Zambia for running the railroad profitably.
For instance, presently the northern part of the country is facing food shortage (maize) which is however, in abundance in Rukwa Region, the southern part of Tanzania.
Had the Tanzanian leadership been more focused, they could have extended Tazara to Rukwa Region, a distance of slightly over 100km and made full use of Tazara in transporting maize from Rukwa to the northern part of the country!
That is why I totally agree with Professor Xiaofeng Zhang from the Institute of African Studies and many others who addressed us for his stress on railroad infrastructure for African countries.
Indeed, a country as large as Tanzania (with 960,000 square km, roughtly a tenth of China) cannot rely on roads for transporting the bulk of its goods across the country.
Politically, while the Chinese leadership through its CPC has grown from strength to strength, their Tanzanian counterpart through the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) is presently on the verge of collapse through a variety of reasons that range from the fight for the next presidency scheduled in 2015 to the fight against festering corruption within the CCM leadership.
The fight against corruption would have been finished long ago had the present leadership been strong!
Unfortunately, it very weak!
Dangers inherent in weak party or government was clearly spelled out by another Chinese lecturer, Professor Luo Jianbo from the CPC party school during his insightful lecture.
He said stressed the importance of strong African political parties/governments, noting that such parties/governments would be capable of making decisions.
In nutshell, lessons that can be drawn from China is that the country has reached where it is today simply because it has all along had a strong and committed leadership.
The present Tanzanian leadership has failed to take action against corrupt leaders in its rank because it does not have the moral authority to deal with such leaders due to the fact that it is itself steeped in corruption!
Tanzania’s leadership lost its focus on the country’s economy, and by extension the very people it claimed to be all out to serve, as soon as it was invaded, among its leadership, by capitalist roaders who have been listening to what Washington and London tells them to do!
The series of lectures I have had the opportunity of listening to during my tour in China are a confirmation of what my former Ambassador to China, Mr Charles Sanga told me while waiting for the Dubai-Beijing flight at the Dubai International Airport on ) October 26th this year.
He said the Chinese have succeeded in their economic reforms because once they decide on something, they stick to it until its logical logical conclusion!
That is the kind of resilience that African leaders, including my own leaders in Tanzania badly lack.
Mr Sanga’s assertions was further buttressed by a former World Bank Representative in Germany, Mr Oltmann G. Siemens, when he was being interviewed by the anchor man of a CCTV programme, Image of China on Friday, November 11th this year.
Mr Siemens, German who had also participated in the restructuring of the East Germany economy immediately after the Germany unification on October 3rd 1990, praised the Chinese leadership for carrying out whatever economic reforms they had decided on sustainably.
“If one wants to succeed in any change, such a change must be sustainable,” said Mr Siemens.
He said China succeeded in its economic reforms because it had the requisite leadership to push it through what they had agreed on.
DISAPPOINTMENT:
Have I had any disappointment during my tour in China? Yes, I have had two: one, failure to ride in those sleek bullet trains and two, leaving this country of very brave people without seeing the Great Wall of China!
I must admit, I’m a strong believer of development through railroads, and I had strongly believed that through this tour I would have had the opportunity of tasting the Chinese railway line, and in particular, the bullet train unfortunately, it was not to be!
I have travelled through Tazara six time, once to Kapiri Mposhi in 1986, during its ten year anniversary, and five times to Mbeya.
As already noted, I had also badly wanted to see the Great Wall of China, but that part was unfortunately not in our programme!
I hope one day I will get another opportunity to visit this country of very hard working people and be able not only to see the Great Wall of China but also to have a ride in those bullet trans.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, having been to China’s financial capital, Shanghai for two days and savoured its skyscrappers, I’m not surprised to learn that this country has pushed aside its former oppressor, Japan, as the second economy in the world after the United States of America.
And to learn that China has also overtaken Deutschland, the country I had worked for two years at its Deusche Welle, Swahili service, between 1991 and 1993 as the second exporter of goods in the world is nothing but breathtaking!
By Attilio Tagalile
