China’s Expanding Footprint and Deepening Debt Crisis in Zimbabwe—From Robert Mugabe to Emmerson Mnangagwa

Abstract

This chapter discusses the controversial Chinese development finance in the post-Mugabe era in Zimbabwe. It argues that President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded Robert Mugabe in 2017, has continued to depend on the opaque Chinese financing models despite promising the nation a new chapter of transparency, accountability and openness in his inauguration speech. It further argues that, while the Mnangagwa presidency has been celebrating the Chinese funding, the country has remained engrossed in a morass of a debilitating debt trap and has been struggling to extricate itself from the debt peonage for over two decades now. Instead of contributing towards social and economic development, the Chinese loans to Zimbabwe under President Mnangagwa are implicated in the deepening of debt sustainability problems in the country. This is mainly because some of the loans are shrouded in secrecy while others are resource-backed loans that have left the country mortgaged to Beijing. This chapter therefore sets out to unpack the notion of ‘continuity and change’ through examining China’s expanding geo-economic footprint and the implications of this for debt sustainability in the post-Mugabe era in Zimbabwe. It concludes that, although Mugabe’s rule formally ended in November 2017, the Chinese debt diplomacy which started during his era has continued to define the debt landscape of Mnangagwa’s Second Republic.