Zimbzbwe loses support from China?

Africabeat:

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China, Zimbabwe's biggest trading partner and source of aid (in no small part because the rest of the world has embargoed it!) announced it will cut off all non-humanitarian support for Robert Mugabe's regime according to Lord Malloch Brown, Britain's foreign minister.

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At the very least, they can smell change in the air. Zimbabwe's no longer bankable, no longer a country in which to make long-term investments in industries or in people. Politically, I get the sense that things could turn in any number of directions at any moment.

This isn't the Cold War anymore. China was cozy with Zimbabwe and sold them all the neat internet filtering and radio jamming technologies its own government so enthusiastically employs. But it was never about ideology. It was about strategic interest. And for whatever reason, China's decided it's no longer in its interest to throw its weight behind Robert Mugabe.

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This may just be a recognition of the obvious. China had a client state that is basically insolvent and therefore cannot pay for the things it would like to buy from China. About the only friends Mugabe has left are the other crippled regimes of Africa who for some reason support the despot and still treat him like he is a hero for his creative form of genocide. It is interesting that Malloch Brown did something constructive for a change. He was one of the worst appointments by the new government in the UK. He is wrong on almost everything, but happens to have gotten this one right. Hat tip Larwyn.