The year 2025 marks a defining moment in the enduring relationship between China and Zimbabwe, as the two nations celebrated 45 years of diplomatic ties and elevated their partnership to new strategic heights. The visit of His Excellency President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa to China in September 2024 and September 2025 reaffirmed this deepening bond, culminating in a series of high-level engagements that strengthened the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation and underscored the shared commitment to build an all-weather community with a shared future. Against this backdrop, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Zimbabwe and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) co-hosted the China–Zimbabwe Dialogue: Aligning China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) with Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 on 20 November 2025. The Dialogue was part of the broader implementation framework emerging from President Mnangagwa’s visit and the outcomes of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It sought to identify actionable synergies between Zimbabwe’s forthcoming National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2) and China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, both of which emphasise sustainable, innovation-led, and people-centred development. This event was not only a think-tank initiative but a multi-stakeholder platform bringing together senior government officials, parliamentarians, diplomats, academics, business leaders, and the media. It reflected the growing consensus across both countries that sustained cooperation, grounded in shared priorities and mutual respect, is essential to achieving Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 and China’s development goals under its new five-year plan. DOWNLOAD PDF
ICASSA was established to coordinate the exchanges, seminars and research activities for China Africa Studies that began in 2007 and focuses on two main objectives.
- Strengthen academic and strategic linkages including joint research and exchanges; and
- Strengthen private sector collaboration and opportunities, and address challenges to this sector through practical support.
News Features
Policy Analysis
Policy Brief: Aligning China’s 15th Five-Year Plan with Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 – A Think-Tank Agenda for Action: From Dialogue to Implementation
The Role of Regional Economic Communities as building blocks for the sustainable implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area
By Munetsi Madakufamba, Executive Director, Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), presented at the Beijing Forum: Africa Development and China-Africa Cooperation, 2-4 December 2023, Peking University, Beijing, China DOWNLOAD PDF
Announcements
Second Belt and Road Forum
Leaders to meet in China for the second belt and road forum in April 2019.
SARDC pays courtesy call to new Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe
SARDC Executive Director, Munetsi Madakufamba, and Founding Director, Phyllis Johnson, pay a...
