It is now an accepted normal that Botswana Government is not very welcoming of Chinese investments in Botswana.
Instead Botswana Government prefers to extol and focus its attention on its traditional allies; United Kingdom, the United States, Norway, continental west Europe and to a lesser extent South Africa.
That is why BEDIA and also the IFSC failed. And it is also the reason why the Botswana International Financial and Trade Centre is currently struggling.
This is a short-sighted trade and economic policy posture. It is also a tragic foreign relations policy.
The west as an economic benefactor has run its time. It might sound uncharitable, but the west is now history.
In fact countries of the West are themselves already approaching Beijing with hand in cap for economic assistance.
The incoming Government of Mokgweetsi Masisi should change this tenor.
Growing the economy, creating jobs and resuscitating the crumbling public infrastructure will allow Masisi to immediately cement his imprimatur on the country’s overall imagination.
As a geopolitical power, and also as a rising economy China is buoyant as is on an international march. And the Chinese at home and in the Diaspora are growing abnormally conscious of their country’s new found international prestige abroad.
This is reflected in their confidence and assertiveness in private conversations, in private dealings as well as in their business operations.
Admittedly, there is always a cost for doing business with China, especially for democratic, open and pluralist countries like Botswana.
But for Botswana a stark choice has to be made between expedient economic recovery and a continuing attachment to academic idealism of liberal adventures that the world over are either under siege or on retreat.
A President Mokgweetsi Masisi will have an easy decision to make; look to Beijing for economic salvation or continue with the West and with that an assured path of economic decline.
There is a lot of good to be had from doing business with China than many in our Government have so far cared to acknowledge.
East African countries like Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tanzania are today on an upward economic trajectory because they have been welcoming to Chinese investments.
Under Ian Khama Botswana easily ranks among the most hostile countries when it comes to China.
Oddly, this hostility is not premised on Botswana’s position as a defender of human rights.
In fact it is difficult to find root of this ill-advised policy other than to ascribe it to excessive power of a petty intelligence agency that other than its unfettered access to the state president has no intellectual capacity to spell out a path for the country’s trade and economic matters.
Botswana and China do not have to agree on everything. In fact our democratic values as embodied in our history are totally alien to the Chinese. While key in Botswana, public accountability of elected officials is not among the top priorities in China. In fact China is not a democracy and makes no effort to pretend to be.
But that should by no means form the basis for ruling out issue-specific engagements with potential for mutual agreements between the two countries.
Such agreements, based on mutual respect and interests are called partnership.
In opening itself to China and to Chinese investments, Botswana Government under Masisi will not have to forgo the country’s value systems and norms much less the democratic institutions that have served us so well as a democracy.
Thankfully, unlike the west, China is not known for setting difficult pre-conditions for investments.
China’s growing international stature, its growing international reach and influence are now irrefutable.
With Europe on the decline and America increasingly inward looking, China has not much contest on the world stage when it comes to economic might.
Russia is a distant pretender whose international ambitions are sullied by the leader’s unbridled brutality and none-attachment to a rules-based world order.
Recent economic data shows that countries of Europe ÔÇô central, east and west are tripping over each other in their quest to get to China ahead of each other.
For all its checkered human rights record, China, these countries have accepted with heavy hearts, is the embodiment of an economic future, especially when looked against the determined pullback of the United States under President Donald Trump.
The recent debacle caused by Dalai Lama’s ultimately aborted visit to Botswana underscored our Government’s illiteracy on global geopolitics and international relations.
We are a country that has amassed a well deserved reputation for punching above one’s weight. But even then we have also been known for our deft knowledge of picking only those fights we stood a chance of winning.
In China the Dalai Lama and the issue of Taiwan are two red lines that are crossed with grave consequences.
For Beijing crossing those red lines is unpardonable.
That applies to everybody without exception as Donald Trump recently recognized to his irritation.
Nelson Mandela tried to use his international moral stature to circumvent the Taiwan issue but was rudely rebuffed by the Mainland.
South China Sea is important but is not a tenet as religiously adhered to as the other two.
After getting away with reckless public statements on South China Sea, Botswana Government widened the frontiers and thought they could still get away with the Dalai Lama. They were wrong.
As a country we should know our limitations and our strengths.
More importantly, we should respect other countries’ sensitivities and sensibilities.
*This is the last edition of the Sunday Standard this year. Enjoy, do not indulge. We hope to see you again in the New Year.
