Botswana-China Vow To Mend Relations
Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday October 3, 2017 18:07
Chinese Ambassador to Botswana, Zhao Yanbo said the big issue was the quality issue concerning certain Chinese contracted projects, which arose a few years ago for various reasons. He was speaking at the China’s 68th National Day Celebration on Thursday.
Zhao said bilateral relations between the two have met challenges in their course of development, solving differences in a mutual beneficial and respectful way is key.
“It can not be denied that our bilateral relations do meet some issues and challenges in its course of development,” he said.
Moreover, he said the issue of projects quality was by no means what the Chinese government wished to see.
Another source of strain to the relations he said is the lack of high level exchange of visits and communications between the two, leading to “the deficit in mutual political trust”.
“I am not surprised about our issues because I know that nothing is perfect,” Zhao said.
He believes the two countries, whose bilateral relations span close to 50 years, can handle “our disagreement and resolve our misunderstanding in a proper way as long as we both uphold the principle of mutual understanding, mutual respect and equal treatment of each other through sincere communication”.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, who was guest of honour at the celebration said any social relationship would go through difficult times. She concurred with Zhao that honesty and mutual respect “will see us through”. “I agree that honest and mutual respect are vital and those are the basic principles on which our relationship is built and will grow.
This is a friendship that we know will stand the test of time,” Venson-Moitoi said.
She added that the relationship has been beneficial to both, and Batswana’s lives have been impacted positively through people-to- people exchanges, education and technology amongst others. She further said China is a critical development partner for Africa through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, as the important framework provides a good platform for deepening South-South cooperation.
Of recent, more Batswana are opting to do business, travel and study in China. Close to 2,400 Batswana have visited China since last November, about 140 Botswana students have studied in China under Chinese government sponsorship or self-sponsorship.