The Sunday Mail
Phyllis Johnson
The leader of the world’s largest economy and most populous nation will visit Zimbabwe on December 1-2, 2015 before going to South Africa to attend the 2nd Summit of the Forum on China Africa Co-operation on December 3-5.
Both visits are significant for the countries, the region and Africa as some transformational agreements will be signed during the visit to Zimbabwe.
And the Focac Summit is expected to strengthen and expand China-Africa co-operation, including a strong regional dimension.
President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China will first call on President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who is the African Union Chair.
His Excellency Xi Jinping is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. He is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and Secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee.
He is married to Peng Liyuan, an opera singer by profession, who inspired international coverage of China’s first modern Presidential couple.
They have one child, a grown daughter who is a graduate of Harvard University in the United States. President Xi is the sixth man to rule the PRC, and the first who was born after the revolution in 1949. Born in the capital, Beijing, on June 15, 1953, his family roots are in Fuping, Shaanxi Province. He has spent more than three decades in public life at all levels – from county, municipal, provincial and national leadership.
“During my meetings with some foreign leaders, they asked me in amazement: How to govern such a big country as China?” he said in an interview soon after taking office in 2013.
“Indeed, it is not easy to govern a country with 1,3 billion people. To get to know the situation is already a difficult task. I often say, it takes much effort to know China and it is not enough to just visit one or two places. China has 9,6 million square kilometres of land, 56 ethnic groups and 1,3 billion people.
“Thus, to get to know China, one needs to avoid the mistake of drawing conclusions based on partial information.”
He quoted a Chinese proverb that says, “Prime ministers used to be lowly officials; great generals rise from the ranks”.
“The system for selecting officials in China requires local work experience. For instance, I have worked in the rural areas as the party branch secretary of a production team. I have also served in county, municipal, provincial and central governments.
“Extensive experience gained from working at the community level enables an official to develop a people’s perspective and know what the country is truly like and what the people need.
“To accumulate experience and professional knowledge and enhance skills and capabilities in the course of practice is essential to doing one’s job well . . . People are the source of our strength. As long as we stand with the people through thick and thin and work with them with one heart and one mind, there is nothing we can’t conquer or accomplish.”
He said he has little leisure time, but tries to make sure he has some time with his family.
“I love reading most. Reading has become a way of life for me. I am also a sports fan, and I like swimming and mountain climbing.”
A former senior US official whose book on “Dealing with China” describes a decade of contact with President Xi, said, “He has been very forthright and candid – privately and publicly – about the fact that the Chinese are rejecting Western values and multi-party democracy . . .
“He sees a strong Party as essential to stability, and the only institution that’s strong enough to help him accomplish his other goals.”
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, who is fluent in Mandarin, told The New Yorker that,
“The bottom line in any understanding of who Xi Jinping is must begin with his dedication to the Party as an institution – despite the fact that through his personal life, and his political life, he has experienced the best of the party and the worst of the party.”
President Xi was Vice-President from 2008-2013. Like many of his generation, he was sent to the rural areas as a youth to work on a farm, returning later to register for higher education.
From 1969-1975, he worked as an educated youth sent to the countryside at Liangjiahe Brigade, Wen’anyi Commune, Yanchuan County, Shaanxi Province, where he joined the CPC and served as party branch secretary.
He studied at Tsinghua University in Beijing from1975-1979 as a student of Basic Organic Synthesis at the Chemical Engineering Department.
He later returned to Tsinghua University for an on-the-job postgraduate programme at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (1998-2002) and graduated with an LLD. President Xi has served in many senior positions of national leadership, starting as Secretary at the General Office of the State Council and the General Office of the Central Military Commission from 1979-1982, before returning to the provinces. He served in Hebei province (1982-1985) and then Fujian province (1988-2002), rising to governor of the province, before transferring to Zhejiang as acting governor, and later Secretary of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee and Chair of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress until 2007 when he was party Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee.
The year 2007 saw him rise through the ranks to national politics and governance as a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of CPC, as well as a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and President of the Party School until 2010. He became VP in 2008 and Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission in 2010.
He was an alternate member of the 15th CPC Central Committee, and member of the 16th CPC Central Committee.
He is a member of the 17th CPC Central Committee, member of the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee, and member of the Secretariat of the 17th CPC Central Committee. – www.sardc.net
◆ This article from the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), through its Institute for China-Africa Studies in Southern Africa, is part of a series exploring the dimensions of China-Africa and China-Zimbabwe relations.
China’s Africa policy
China’s Africa Policy statement from the new Chinese administration of President Xi Jinping was presented at African Union headquarters in Ethiopia in 2014 by Premier Li Keqiang, who said:
“We should not limit our cooperation to energy, resources and infrastructure, but expand it to industrialisation, urbanisation, agricultural modernisation and many other areas, and put greater emphasis on green and low-carbon development as well as ecological and environmental protection.
“What is more, we should combine the role of the market with that of the government, enhance the synergy of business-society interactions and innovate on practical cooperation, so as to make China-Africa cooperation a model of complementarity, practical results and efficiency.”
Six areas were proposed to upgrade co-operation, including industrial and financial co-operation, poverty reduction, ecological and environmental protection, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, peace and security.
These will inform the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the Forum on China Africa Co-operation to be hosted by South Africa in Johannesburg in early December, followed by the Second Focac Summit.
