{"id":21451,"date":"2008-07-03T08:44:56","date_gmt":"2008-07-03T15:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=21451"},"modified":"2008-07-04T15:05:20","modified_gmt":"2008-07-04T22:05:20","slug":"behind-the-reluctance-of-china-and-africa-to-criticize-mugabe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/behind-the-reluctance-of-china-and-africa-to-criticize-mugabe\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Reluctance of China and Africa to Criticize Mugabe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Howard W. French in the <a title=\"IHT.com\" href=\"http:\/\/iht.com\/articles\/2008\/07\/03\/asia\/letter.php\">International Herald Tribune<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[&#8230;] Western governments led by London and Washington look at Mugabe&#8217;s rule and see such a clear-cut case of evil that they are at a loss to understand why the rest of Africa &#8211; or China, for that matter, a Security Council member with fast-deepening ties with the continent &#8211; doesn&#8217;t rush to join in on their condemnation.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;] Paranoid African dictators look at the calls to denounce Mugabe and worry they might be next. The more democratically inclined know better. They see Washington&#8217;s embrace of dictators in places like Equatorial Guinea, or even former enemies, like the robber baron former Marxists who run Angola, and see a pattern of highly selective outrage. Might the fact that these countries &#8211; to name but two &#8211; are swimming in oil have something to do with escaping the Mugabe treatment?<\/p>\n<p>China looks at this inconsistency, too, and naturally suspects it is being discriminated against. The only African country that has drawn more Western critical fire than Zimbabwe recently is Sudan, for its genocidal campaign in Darfur. It&#8217;s an emerging oil power, too, but unlike so many African kleptocracies, its product flows east, not west.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Also see previous CDT post <a title=\"CDT\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/06\/chinas-role-in-zimbabwe\/\">China&#8217;s Role in Zimbabwe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Howard W. French in the International Herald Tribune: [&#8230;] Western governments led by London and Washington look at Mugabe&#8217;s rule and see such a clear-cut case of evil that they are at a loss to understand why the rest of Africa &#8211; or China, for that matter, a Security Council member with fast-deepening ties [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,2,5805,100],"tags":[5922,80,1666,6341],"class_list":["post-21451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-economy","category-main","category-politics","tag-africa","tag-china","tag-mugabe","tag-zimbabwe","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.1 (Yoast SEO v24.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Behind the Reluctance of China and Africa to Criticize Mugabe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/behind-the-reluctance-of-china-and-africa-to-criticize-mugabe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Behind the Reluctance of China and Africa to Criticize Mugabe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From Howard W. French in the International Herald Tribune: [&#8230;] Western governments led by London and Washington look at Mugabe&#8217;s rule and see such a clear-cut case of evil that they are at a loss to understand why the rest of Africa &#8211; or China, for that matter, a Security Council member with fast-deepening ties [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/behind-the-reluctance-of-china-and-africa-to-criticize-mugabe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-03T15:44:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2008-07-04T22:05:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matthias Giessler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matthias Giessler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/behind-the-reluctance-of-china-and-africa-to-criticize-mugabe\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/behind-the-reluctance-of-china-and-africa-to-criticize-mugabe\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matthias Giessler\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/815c394bd2b80bc8f4e50883204e1039\"},\"headline\":\"Behind the Reluctance of China and Africa to Criticize Mugabe\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-07-03T15:44:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-07-04T22:05:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/behind-the-reluctance-of-china-and-africa-to-criticize-mugabe\/\"},\"wordCount\":218,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Africa\",\"China\",\"mugabe\",\"Zimbabwe\"],\"articleSection\":[\"China &amp; 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