Economic repercussions of the Look East Policy in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's LEP includes closer ties with Indonesia, India, Iran, Malaysia, North Korea, but China stands out as the major ally. Owing to the long standing relationship between China and Zimbabwe, the latter speaks glowingly of China as an "all weather friend" (Scoones, 2016) When the Chinese head of state Xi Jinping visited Harare in 2015, he summed up the relationship as a special one that had withstood the test of time. It is in light of such an evolving and strengthening relationship that China represents Zimbabwe's biggest foreign investor after the African country's estrangement from the West, arguably caused by the West's disapproval of Zimbabwe's human rights record, flagrant corruption as well as Zimbabwe's accusations of the West (particularly the United Kingdom) trying to colonise and invade Zimbabwe yet again. In 2013 alone, China contributed over US$ 600 million (Sun, 2016) while between January and November 2015, China further contributed at least US$ 46.5 million in FDI (Sunday News Online, 2016) In addition, in December 2015 while on a two day state visit, President Xi said China would provide Zimbabwe with a US$ 1.2 billion loan to rehabilitate and expand Zimbabwe's coal fired Hwange power plan.