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.
