‘China-Malawi relations will strengthen’
Chinese Ambassador Pan Hejun is completing his tour of duty to Malawi. In this interview with our Lilongwe Bureau Chief Sam Chunga, Pan explains his experience in the country.
Q: You are winding up your tour of duty as Ambassador of the Republic of China to Malawi. When will you actually depart from Malawi and where will your diplomatic career take you next?
A:
I will be leaving Lilongwe for Beijing on June 21, and I’ll pick up my next post in Beijing. Whereever I go, I will remember Malawi and continue to make contributions to the development of China-Malawi friendly relations and cooperation.
Q: In general terms, how do you look back to your work and stay in Malawi?
AMalawi is a beautiful country with a mild climate and warm-hearted people. I enjoyed staying here very much. During my four years’ tenure, the bilateral relations between China and Malawi have been strenghend remarkably. There has been visible development of cooperation in areas like education, health, culture, agriculture, infrastructure, etc. The mutual understanding of the two peoples has been greatly strenghthened. Malawi will definitely be one of the most memorable posts I’ve been assigned to.
Q:
How do you reflect on strong bilateral relations?
A:
With the development of the bilateral relations, the exchange of visits between the peoples of our two countries have been more and more frequent, including high level officials. Until now, a number of Cabinet ministers and deputy ministers have visited China and their Chinese counterparts also made their visits to Malawi. Last year, the then President, Her Excellency Dr. Joyce Banda, also visited China to attend the first China-South Asia Expo. The statistics in the Counsular section of the Embassy also sees an increasing number of ordinary Malawians visiting China for tourism, business, trainings or a variety of other reasons.
Both China and Malawi are developing countries, and we both shoulder the task of achieving national development. As developing partners, the growing ties between China and Malawi make possible for the people of our two countries to know more about each other, learn from each other, and eventually reach the goal of common prosperity together.
Q: You are leaving Malawi at a time when the people have ushered in a new Government. Do you think the strong and cordial top-level government ties between the two countries will continue?
A: First, please allow me to congratuate all Malawian people for scucesfully holding a peaceful election and His Excellency Prof. Peter Mutharika for winning the election.
The friendly relations and cooperation between China and Malawi will continue to develop. I have full confidence in that because the leaders of both countries understand the importance of strenghthening the bilateral relations. China and Malawi are holding hands with the purpose of achieving national development together, with this purpose firm and unchanged, the governments of both China and Malawi will not hesitate to promote the bilateral relations to a new height.
Q: China has helped in training Malawian doctors, soldiers and other professionals. Just how many have been trained and are there other plans to expand the training programmes?
A:
The Chinese Government provides training opportunities to Malawian people in different forms. Every year, we send around 30 Malwian students to study in Chinese universities with Chinese Government Scholarship; around 200 people of different professions attend human resource trainings of different discliplines in China. The Ministry of Defence of China also provides short-term and long-term courses to the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) officers. With the first session of the training of the engineering batallion ending successfully, the second group of Chinese experts will come to Malawi soon to continue the training. With the development of cooperation between China and Malawi in almost all areas, I believe there will be more and more training opportunities open to the Malawian people.
Q: We have seen multi-billion Kwacha projects like the Parliament Building, the new National Stadium under construction in Lilongwe. What other major projects does China plan to accomplish in Malawi?
A:
The projects you mentioned were the help China pleged when establishing diplomatic realtions with Malawi. The projects were proposed by the Malawian Government then. It’s been our long-term foreign policy not to interfere with the internal affairs of another country. We’ve always believed that Malawians should be the ones to decide how to develop their own country.
Q: Malawi has much to learn from China, concerning turning the nation around from poverty and social struggles to prosperity within a decade or so. From your observation, what potential does Malawi have to attain the prosperity goals?
A:
Malawi has potiential in many areas. However, for any country to realise naitional prosperity, the basis is agriculture. A robust foundation of agriculture not only ensures food security and diversification, but also provides the necessary raw materials for the development of industry. The mild climate, abundant sunshine and water resouce are great advantages for developing agriculture in this country. Of course, for further development purposes, you need more roads, more electricity and a good investment environment.
Q: How many Chinese nationals are in Malawi and in what fields are they contributing to Malawi’s development?
A:
Currently, there are around 1 000 Chinese nationals living in Malawi, among which are big investors like the Anhui Foreign Economic Company that invested in the Golden Peacock Hotel and Shopping Mall, the Henan Guoji Group, the Malawi Cotton Company, Hwawei, ZTE, etc, as well as people running businesses in this country. All of them are participants of the development of Malawi. The Chinese investors in Malawi brought with them advanced ideas and skills, provided job opportunities to the local people and at the same time provided quality service to the society. Some of the investors even send their local emplyees to China for training, which further strenghens the exchages between our two countries.
