Juxtaposing China at 65, Rwanda at 20

For a full hour, Shen Yongxiang, the jovial Chinese ambassador to Rwanda and his wife stood outside the open doors of the embassy’s reception hall welcoming guests who turned up to celebrate 65 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on Friday. The open doors and the Ambassador’s outstretched arms provided the perfect metaphor for what China did in 1978, when reforms that have transformed the country into the world’s second biggest economy were launched. In a way, China’s post 1978 story can be juxtaposed to Rwanda’s own post-genocide rebirth. After initial hiccups, the economies of the two countries have risen from modicum to unimaginable heights, mainly, thanks to firm leadership and adoption of homegrown strategies that have shaped their respective national development agendas. While China was founded in 1949, it’s the reforms in the years after 1978 that have really propelled it to its current position on the global high table. The same can be said of Rwanda. Having gotten independence in 1962, many a Rwandan will tell you that it’s the years after 1994, which have really shaped the country into one that everyone is finally proud to be associated with. See, countries have turning points and both China and Rwanda have theirs clearly marked. But for countries to make full use of their turning points, they need strong leaders with the charisma to be at the vanguard of national transformation. Deng Xiaoping is the man who turned around China when he abandoned the conformist communist doctrines and begun to incorporate elements of the free-market-enterprise into the Chinese economic system. If you have been to China recently, it’s hard to see portraits of Xiaoping pinned in public places but those of Chairman Mao Zedong are everywhere. Chairman Mao as he’s commonly known among the Chinese is the founding father of the PRC but many scholars say his politics almost crushed the country to death. But if Mao put China on the brink of collapse with his strict planned economics, it’s Xiaoping who’s credited with picking up the pieces and crafted what Albert Nsengiyumva, Minister of state in charge of TVET called ‘the most remarkable economic transformation in human history.’ Nsengiyumva was the guest of honour at the Friday evening event. That ‘remarkable economic transformation’ is even more stunning when seen from a statistical point of view. In 1978, the total value of China’s imports and exports was only US$20.6billion, ranking 32nd in world trade and accounting for only 1 per cent of the global total. That was at the start of reforms. By 2010, the total value of China’s imports and exports had grown to US$2.974 trillion, 144 times from its 1978 worth! That’s roughly 16 per cent annual growth. In 2013, China’s annual trade in goods (exports and imports) exceeded $4trillion and surpassed the US as the world’s largest trading nation. The reforms have seen the Chinese become richer and healthier and happier people. China now has the largest middleclass of over 600 million people and 200 million people are on their way out of absolute poverty. But China’s growth has also had spillover benefits contributing to general economic growth of other countries exporting to China or benefiting from Chinese global investments. For instance, Rwanda’s own bilateral trade with China reached $243million in 2013 with Chinese investments ever growing. Today, China’s economy is slowing into a jog after years of sprinting and that effect will be felt beyond its borders confirming its significance to the world economy. In juxtaposition, President Paul Kagame is Rwanda’s Deng Xiaoping. But one could also argue that Kagame is the founding father of the new Rwanda because he led the war that overthrew the genocidal regime and picked the country from its nadir to its current glory and ‘he aren’t done yet.’ So in Kagame, Rwanda have elements of two great Chinese leaders, Mao and Xiaoping. Challenges An interesting enigma for both China and Rwanda is the colossal amount of criticism that their governments have to contend with annually from people who somehow think, the regimes in the two countries are wrong. True there’s no perfect system but cases of human rights abuse, stifled political space and absence of democratic rule are permanent on the menu of accusations from the stubborn and most often hypocritical West. ‘You’re great but this and that’ syndrome seems to shadow the otherwise stunning success stories of China and Rwanda but I was glad to get a refreshing view from Peter Fahrenholtz, Germany’s Ambassador Rwanda. “The west should be patient with China; we Germans understand that democracy is not automatic that you press a button and it just happens.”

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Juxtaposing China at 65, Rwanda at 20