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.
This is BIG NEWS, at least from where I'm standing.
What it means is that in China's view
Zimbabwe's no longer bankable, no longer a country in which to make long-term investments in industries or in people.... [F]or whatever reason, China's decided it's no longer in its interest to throw its weight behind Robert Mugabe.
Read it here.
This is huge. Mad Bobby Mugabe, despite the fact that he has turned Zimbabwe into Hell on Earth, is regarded as an anti-colonialist hero by many Africans. Now that China has turned on him he can no longer attribute his nation's woes to the actions of western imperialist agents and if he falls, as now seems likely, his reputation on the continent will be tarnished.
