Our leader of delegation, Genuine Professor Ms Joyce Befu, the Most Excellent Grand Achiever (MEGA-1), planned to fly us to Beijing, China, last week to witness and marvel at the progress that country has made since its last major internecine conflict in 1949.
Formed in 1921, the Communists, operating as the People’s Liberation Army, in 1949 defeated the capitalist West-leaning Kuomintang (KMT) army which fled the mainland to Taiwan.
For China, Taiwan remains its province and may retake it by military force if necessary. The USA and the West in general want Taiwan and China to remain two antagonistic countries because they don’t want to lose navigation rights through the Taiwan Strait.
About 75 years ago, China was very poor, with a huge ever-growing population. The West predicted that the communists would fail, implode, and further impoverish their vast country. They were very wrong. Wrong as in wrong.
Analysts argue that the Communist Party of China set out to govern with a long term vision and strategy. It controlled its population from unfettered boom by introducing and implementing the one child per family policy for years as it modernized its infrastructure. Over the years China learned from the failures of the Soviet Union and other communist countries and modified its political ideology to a communism with Chinese characteristics. Socialist democracy. One political party. No competitive elections, but allowed competitive businesses and industries to blossom, funded its universities to research and sent students to study capitalist governance systems, technological research, international relations, agricultural revolutions, and military secrets.
Forty years later, China was on the rise economically and militarily. China is currently projected to overtake the USA as the strongest and biggest economy in the world by before 2030.
Such projects are making capitalist governments spend sleepless nights. Russia, although still very powerful military, is no longer a big worry for the USA and other capitalist countries. It is economically tamed. But China is a headache.
While it is true that in most parts of the world communism or socialism has failed to deliver its promises of a world of equal opportunities, in China the truth and trend are different.
Why? And what lessons can African countries, especially Malawi, learn from the Chinese economic and political ideologies?
First, since 1949 China has invested heavily in agriculture by researching and improving on seeds, cropping systems, and ensuring a per crop whole-value chain approach.
The Chinese don’t proclaim God everywhere. Meetings don’t open and close with prayer. But they know that God punishes those who fail to learn their yesterdays. If a country suffers from heavy ruinous rains this year followed by drought, the best is to harvest water. In China and Kagameland nearby they harvest water by damming and collecting what falls from rooftops into drums at household level. For use during lean times.
People with enough food to eat, mwana alirenji, rarely bother about politics. So, the ruling elite in China are left alone. Our late former president of Malawi, Ngwazi Bingu wa Mutharika, understood this.
Second, China developed its industries, harnessing the power of its massive labour force, to ensure it does not import too much while it exports huge volumes to other countries. More exports mean more income or forex and more economic stability. More industries mean more jobs. People with jobs and disposable income in a politically and militarily stable country don’t bother about politics.
Third, China went on to build modern accommodation for its people replete with central heating systems and other facilities. People who sleep in good houses that don’t leak when it rains, the Ngwazi understood, don’t bother about politics.
Fourth, China borrowed a lot from the West and the Washington Consensus but rejected their wholesome capitalist prescriptions. Against IMF prescriptions, China gave subsidies to its farmers and provided social welfare stipends or unemployment benefits for the poorest of the poor just like Europeans and Americans do. In short, whether communist or capitalist, governments across the world do have subsidies in one form another.
Fifth, in China corruption and theft are heavily punished such that people are forced to be honest in their business and other dealings. Before someone engages in corruption in China, that person thinks twice. Thus, jobs are done properly in most cases. Bribes are minimised most times.
China has succeeded under communist politics. Russia has not failed under communism. The USA has succeeded under capitalism. So have Germany, Japan, Britain and other countries under capitalism.
Most of Africa has failed under both communism and capitalism. Why? Lack of long term development visions.
On this continent, corruption is considered normal. Sometimes, it is even praised. Former Director of Public Prosecutions, Fahad Assani, told Malawians years ago that one third of Malawi’s budget is lost to corruption. And its passive population smiles and its police are 0rderd as to whom to arrest.
The Communist Party of China is rooted in people wishes and desires. Over the years it has evolved with the people. Malawi’s political parties belong to individuals, as a form of investment, and it is these individuals that proper while the poor voter wallows in poverty. Communist Party of Malawi (CPM) in the offing?
