Interview: China sets up example for Africans to create miracle through self-reliance

Source: Xinhua | 05-13-2009 08:27

by Li Nuer and Tichaona Chifamba

HARARE, May 12 (Xinhua) -- Former Zimbabwe envoy to China, Chris Mutsvangwa, has described China's transformation and recent development as a "miracle" which has given a positive example to Africa.

"China is like a human miracle before your face. It happens as you are watching," Mutsvangwa told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

"I have lived in New York, Brussels and London and have been to Tokyo and for an African or for somebody from the Third World you go to these cities and they are already built and you feel it's natural that they are there. But when you live in China you watch this change happening everyday. You actually see a miracle happening before your eyes," he said.

Mutsvangwa, was served as a diplomat in China from 2002 to 2007, said it was difficult to give people directions through the use of landscapes, because these changed within very short periods as the Chinese continued to modernize their cities.

"There is 1.3 billion people all engaged in trying to do something good for themselves and for their country, trying to build a modern country which can stand up to other countries which have made progress and from an African perspective, it gives us so much hope that the situation of poverty, the situation of underdevelopment, is actually something you can change," he said.