China is now the second largest economy in the world and is currently establishing its footprint as a global leader. At the time Malawi got independence, China was just another poor country. Malawian Ambassador to China ALLAN CHINTEDZA argues that China offers Malawi practical lessons on how to grow the economy in record time. Our Assistant Bureau Chief SUZGO CHITETE engaged Chintedza on this matter.
Why should Malawi pay attention to China?
China offers so many practical lessons to Malawi for the simple reason that China has progressed so fast to where it is now. For us it has taken us 60 years since we got independence to be where we are. But it has taken China less than this time to become the second largest economy in the world; they have moved 800 million people out of poverty. This is documented. When the President came here for the expo, last year, he stressed that we have really had time to learn from others, we cannot continue in just learning, now we must think of implementation.
Malawi is dependent on agriculture and the long-term national vision – Malawi 2063—has agriculture as an area of focus. Any opportunities from China in this regard?
In fact, China is so much into agriculture. They commercialised agriculture at an early stage and are able to feed their population of 1.4 billion. Mechanised farming is the way to go. We are still using the hoe, you cannot expect to have food security at that level. We need to mechanise. At policy level, that we have been able to capture with the Malawi 2063. It is now the implementation which we must work on. The mega farm initiative is the way to go. We need to invest in producing hybrid seeds and fertilisers and this is a sustainable way of managing our agriculture. We are pushing for Chinese companies to come to Malawi to invest in these areas. Currently, we are importing a lot and for a good reason because we do need the machinery and equipment. But that is expensive whilst for our primary products we do not get as much. This is why we need to commercialise agriculture so that we have manufacturing in Malawi where we can produce our own inputs. We have constraints in terms of land size in relation to the population, so we need seed varieties that are fast maturing and high yielding.
With all this, is China a willing partner to share this expertise to Malawi?
We are negotiating under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and as Malawi we signed the memorandum of understanding. Specifically, with the China Agriculture University the programme is arranged in such a way that the Malawian student will study for one year in China here and go back home for practicals where they will be assigned to a farm to implement what they have learnt here. This programme, to me, is one of the best in terms of agriculture.
What would you say is the level of interest from Malawians to apply for Chinese scholarships for tertiary education?
I think the interest is there but not so much to our satisfaction. We still have the colonial mentality, that the Western education, especially from Europe and America, is better than Chinese. People do not understand the standards and level of education here in China. I will give you an example, when we came in we managed to negotiate with China Agriculture University for a Masters programme known as the ambassador’s programs. This is a separate window away from other scholarships. We advertised in Malawi, we only had, I think, about 12 applications in 2022 yet here with the university we had agreed unlimited number of places. We are an agricultural economy and we have institutions such as the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) which produces a lot of graduates who would have taken advantage of this opportunity for postgraduate study. We have continued to raise awareness on these opportunities and the second time we had 16 applicants and currently we are working to have 30. And this is just one University out of so many that we have here in China.
As you have indicated that there is preference for Western education over Chinese. Would you vouch for Chinese scholarships or education?
In Malawi, we still have challenges in terms of places in institutions of higher learning. Out of many eligible candidates few get selected because our universities can only absorb so much. We also have graduates who cannot get employed and are idle. For me this is an opportunity no one should miss. To answer your question, the education here is worth the time. Ask Malawians who are or have studied here. I am happy to report that we have Malawians studying at Xinghua University and this is where President Xi Jinping graduated from. You can compare it to Harvard or Cambridge. We have more top universities. The education standards here are very competitive. It is as good as what you will get in the American system. I have interacted with several Malawian students and they all confirm that the standards are impressive; from the classroom size to infrastructure – it is all high quality.
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