China embarks on new journey towards national reju...

China embarks on new journey towards national rejuvenation

School children getting water from a borehole installed by China Aid under the 1000 Borehole initiative

Gao Junya

“Tranquil and down to earth rural life”, “grand harvest sceneries”, “live-streaming agricultural products” …

These are the trending topics on China’s Tik Tok. Behind these popular videos lies one noticeable trend: more and more young Chinese are carving out their careers in rural areas.

In more creative and modern ways, they run farms, open up township factories, promote rural tourism…, creating employment opportunities for rural residents and stimulating rural development.

Official statistics show that in the past decade, 11.2 million Chinese have relocated to rural areas to start businesses, injecting momentum to China’s rural vitalization drive.

China’s pursuit of all-round rural vitalization is built upon its remarkable poverty alleviation drive.

China eradicated extreme poverty, having lifted more than 770 million people out of poverty since the late 1970s. This accounted for over 70 percent of the global total over the same period.

It is worth pointing out that China is not only pushing forward the poverty alleviation drive at home, it is also supporting other developing countries including African countries to combat poverty.

Here in Zimbabwe, an agricultural demonstration village set up by a group of Chinese agricultural experts in 2019 in Zvimba, Mashonaland West, has introduced advanced agricultural knowledge and technologies and helped to improve agricultural production and enable many locals to be better off.

The 1,000 China-aided boreholes have provided thousands of villagers across Zimbabwe access to clean water. More boreholes are to be drilled in the coming years.

In his speech at the opening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC central committee, reaffirms China’s dedication to promoting a human community with a shared future, which encourages different countries to face and solve global challenges together.

While striving to achieve its own development goals, China always stands ready to share its development gains with Africa.

In an interview with me this August, ZANU-PF’s politburo member and Secretary for External Affairs Simbarashe Mumbengegwi stressed that since its founding in 1921, the CPC has not only transformed China, but also transformed the world. He believes Zimbabwe is one of the many beneficiaries of China’s development.

“The Communist Party of China has introduced relationships with other political parties in Africa and elsewhere, where the emphasis is on mutual benefit and sharing, working in solidarity, in cooperation,” he said.

He says no other country has contributed to the development of the African continent as China has done. And I couldn’t agree more.

Working as a correspondent in Africa over the past 4 years, I’ve witnessed a number of cooperative projects launched here in Zimbabwe with Chinese assistance: the Kariba South Hydro Power Expansion project, the magnificent new Parliament building, the new National Pharmaceutical Warehouse, the R.G. Mugabe International Airport Expansion project, just to name a few. I’ve seen batches of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines from China arrive in Zimbabwe since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Before the 20th National Congress of the CPC closes, it will elect its new leadership. We are all certain that China’s future will continue to be in safe hands. So will China-Africa cooperation.

Gao Junya is a Harare-based journalist with China Media Group.