Despite neutrality claims Uganda is firmly in China’s fist?

The vehicles handed over were manufactured in China by State-owned SAICA Motors Limited and it’s this company that appointed a local company to manage and maintain them.   

Musa Ecweru, the state minister for works,  used this opportunity to take a swipe at China’s rivals in the battle for global Supremacy,  the  West led by the US.    The beauty we attach to you is that when we partner and do things like this, you don’t give us outrageous conditions. 

Some people would have loved to give us this but would have dictated us to even change our culture, the way we behave and so many things. We thank you for respecting our values as we respect yours,” Ecweru said.   

With heavy rains pounding  Uganda roads across the country including those in Kampala metropolitan which hosted NAM became unmotorable and unsafe with many roads littered with potholes whilst others were entirely washed away, leading to mobility challenges.  

As NAM  was beaconing, Uganda’s dependency on global power,  was on show when   China Communications Construction Company (CCCC),  a state-owned company,  offered to renovate two decrepit roads in Kampala,  free of charge.  

The roads that were repaired included Malcolm X avenue and Prince Charles Drive both Found in Kololo the swank  suburb of Kampala.  “CCCC is a member of the local community. 

We are proud to have offered support in carrying out emergency repairs on many roads and bridges. We have been doing all kinds of corporate social responsibility work in Uganda for many years,” he said. “It is our responsibility to give back to the community and support the development and improvement of the local community. This exemplifies our profound commitment to the betterment of Ugandan society, ”Xiong Pailiang, the project manager at CCCC,  told the media after he said the company put fresh tarmac layers and repaired potholes on the two roads.  

The only project  that was launched before the NAM summit could commence but the Chinese had no hand it was the Kampala flyover  which was funded  by the Japanese at cost of $200 million   under the auspices of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 

China hasn’t only played a key  role  in  Uganda’s infrastructure sector  but also the energy sector through funding the drilling of oil and   building of power dams. Yet in  December  Museveni hosted a  Chinese Delegation from the National People’s Congress of China led by the standing committee’s deputy chairman Luosang Jiangcun at State House in the lakeside town of Entebbe imploring them to open up and allow final products  from Uganda.  

“ When I last checked, China had opened 400 products to enter their country without tax and limit. That is very important because somebody buying what you produce is actual support. One of the problems of Africa has been the export of raw materials because when you export raw materials you get less money, but you also lose jobs. 

China and Africa need to trade in finished products more. When you hear that there are crises in many African countries, this is the root cause.

The economy cannot grow without value addition. So, I encourage China to open their market more for finished products,” said Museveni adding that since 1949, when the Communist party took power in China,  supportive of Africa.  
 
“At that time Chinese leaders like Mao Tse Tung supported our struggle against colonialism. 

Then after independence, even when China was not so prosperous, they extended support to Africa. 

I remember China built the Tanzania-Zambia railway after independence and that was to help landlocked Zambia against the white supremacists in Southern Africa.  

Museveni’s relationship with the West is on an all-time law owing to accusations of human rights violations and  passage of the  Anti- Homosexuality Act which the Western countries have condemned.   

The latest sanctions came from   Washington with Joe Biden expelling   Uganda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). 

“Despite intensive engagement between the United States and the Central African Republic, Gabon, Niger, and Uganda, these countries have failed to address United States concerns about their non-compliance with the Agoa eligibility criteria,”  Biden said.   

Official data shows that  Uganda exported goods worth $174m to the US  in 2022  but Museveni had already indicated that even before the ban  Ugandan goods had been blocked from the US Market. 

“The homosexuals in the US are interfering with our export of textiles. Some of the orders have been cancelled there,”  said  Museveni but he later said he was unfazed saying  Uganda is a nation of what he termed “wealth creators”.  

“ Some of the people who got carried away by linking up with foreign interests forget our strengths. For somebody to come and say unless you follow what I’m you I will not …. They are really not serious,” Museveni said “  Foreign pressure has no meaning. 

Therefore, what we can do is  fight corruption; the usual problems,  concentrate on regional  integration  but internationally, we can trade with those people who respect us.”   

Museveni seemed to be indicating a shift towards China which for over two decades has reinforced its longstanding ties with  African countries placing the continent squarely at the centre of its ambitions to become a global leader.  

Unlike the Western countries that place conditions such as democracy and human rights   Beijing claims to assist African countries in choosing their development path while upholding its principle of “non-interference” in African domestic politics. In practice, however,  analysts say that the Chinese government exports its model of state-led economic growth under one-party, authoritarian rule. 

Economically, Beijing contends it seeks to help Africa industrialize and promote “win-win” cooperation. 

Its trade and investment, nevertheless, are characterized by increasing control over key African commodities and infrastructure. 

“ More broadly, Beijing uses its relationships with African countries to accomplish other important objectives.  

These goals include gaining preferential access to the continent’s natural resources, using free trade zones to circumvent U.S. and EU trade quotas, opening up African countries as markets for Chinese exports, and enlisting African support for Chinese global diplomatic goals, such as garnering support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),”  says the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies.  

With China facilitating NAM     Museveni used his speech to aim jabs at the West saying that they had used their progress in the technology of shipbuilding and the use of gunpowder, to conquer Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific.  

“European looting of the rest of humanity through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, semi-colonialism, conquest and extermination of the indigenous people in some cases, went on for 500 years,” Museveni said adding that  Instead of humanity celebrating the scientific advances in ship-building, the wider use of gun-powder which had been discovered by the Chinese around 800BC, the wider use of quinine against malaria that the Spanish had learnt from the indigenous Indians of the Americas, the printing Press, the steam engine and all the other inventions, we had to spend the 500 years in anti-colonials wars to expel the evil parasites.  

“The oppressors, miscalculate when they use their temporary advantage in science and technology to think that they can use that to indefinitely oppress other people. 

The oppressed, will learn, catch up and defeat the oppressor.  That is why Empires always, all collapse.  The idea of Empires, is evil,” Museveni said adding that human beings should only have free associations of nations  people of a common or shared origin, interacting for mutual advantage with the peoples of the World.   

“Therefore, we the resistance fighters of Uganda, are flabbergasted and look down with contempt, at the philosophical, ideological and strategic shallowness of some of the actors in the World.  Why not respect the freedom of everybody, if you say you are a democrat?” Museveni asked. “Why do you not seek to influence people by your good example, instead of manipulation, lectures and threats? 

Whilst Museveni wants China to help Africa industrialize by buying Africa’s final goods China is the world’s largest importer of oil, natural gas, and coal with Africa playing a big role in this.