Hamlet's lessons and flamingo islands

Mutual respect, common prosperity have been the key planks of relations between China, Kenya

Though it was a cold winter in Beijing in December 2002, when I began my ambassadorial tenure, it was a warm period for Sino-Kenya relations. It was also a time of momentous change in both countries. Mwai Kibaki had just succeeded Daniel Arap Moi as the president of Kenya. The then Chinese president Jiang Zemin was more than keen to extend a hand of friendship to Africa to further strengthen Sino-Africa ties.

Such a time it was, and I was at the right place at the right time to do a very important job. China was a melting pot of economic growth. A strong wind of change was blowing from Africa across the Indian Ocean, through the Strait of Malacca all the way to Zhongguo, as the Chinese prefer calling their country. I simply took advantage of the tide of the times, that would lead to a lasting bond of friendship between the two countries. I was privileged to witness and facilitate the dramatic events that followed.

I handed my letters of credence to then president Jiang, a man of great experience and high culture, in the Great Hall of the People on Christmas Day 2002. Our conversation was amiable, friendly and most pleasant. As we sat down to hot cups of Chinese green tea, I sensed from the president's body language that a subtle battle of wits was in the offing, and I was alert to it. He referred to Shakespeare's Hamlet and related it to the transition of power taking place in Kenya then. Thankfully, I had read Hamlet at Kangaru School sixth form many years ago, and I was able to engage Jiang on it and the power politics of indecision, procrastination and revenge that was the theme of the play, assuring him that Kenya's transition of power was smooth and peaceful.

The ties between Zhongguo and Kenniya, as he put it, needed strengthening, and trade and investment relations needed a boost, responsibilities that fell squarely on my shoulders. I couldn't agree more. That is the primary job of any ambassador anywhere - build bridges of friendship and strengthen bilateral ties through trade, investment and cultural exchanges for mutual benefit.

I had to move quickly to make contacts and new friends in the diplomatic community, and see where my work would start. The then Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, was disarmingly friendly. He had worked as a young diplomat in the Chinese embassy in Nairobi and could greet me in Kiswahili - "Hujambo Balozi, karibu China", meaning "How are you ambassador? Welcome to China". That endeared me to him and we shared long conversations. He rose through the diplomatic ranks to become ambassador to Washington and to the United Nations at different times, and now as foreign minister, I knew that I was dealing with a man who could not be outwitted on diplomatic issues.

Like Jiang, Li was also a man of letters and high culture. He had written a volume of poetry in Chinese and in his anthology there was one poem on the flamingoes of Lake Nakuru. I asked for bits of translation. Li visualized the flamingoes in flight as a flying island, and immortalized this celestial phenomenon in print. I wondered whether any Kenyan had thought of these flamingoes in this way.

I made forays into the African Diplomatic Group, largely divided between Anglophone and Francophone Africa, and holding meetings separately and only occasionally as one group. I attended meetings of both groups. Although my command of French was pretty elementary, I could follow, not without difficulty, the gist of the arguments among the French-speaking African ambassadors.

One barrier to Sino-Africa relations was that there were few air links between China and Africa. Only two major airlines, Ethiopian and South African, had direct flights to Beijing from their capitals, Addis Ababa and Johannesburg. To overcome this problem, we had to negotiate what was called in diplo-speak a Bilateral Air Service Agreement which would allow Kenya Airways flights to China. This was done with the involvement of the management of the Kenyan carrier, who had initiated negotiations prior to my arrival in Beijing, within the rules set by the International Air Transport Association, and soon began flights to Hong Kong via Bangkok.

This, however, did not give us the flight to Beijing that we craved for. Attempts to negotiate this ran into a headwind. IATA rules would not extend Kenyan Air flights from Hong Kong to Beijing, as that route was the domain of domestic, not international flights. A new routing was negotiated from Nairobi via Dubai but this ended up in Guangzhou, not Beijing. However, this seemed acceptable as Guangzhou was the factory of the world, and was good for bilateral trade, probably better than Beijing.

The second barrier to Afro-Chinese relations was that the Chinese were not coming to Africa as tourists. A tourism protocol needed to be signed between China and individual African countries. I lobbied both English-speaking and French-speaking African ambassadors to get these deals signed. Only South Africa and Egypt had signed the agreement. As a group we were able to push for this, and at individual level, I drafted the Kenya-China Tourism Protocol, sent it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nairobi, got the approval of the attorney general and returned the draft protocol to Beijing. The minister for tourism at the time, Raphael Tuju, flew to Beijing to sign the protocol with his Chinese counterpart.

With this signature, the floodgates were open. The Chinese came in large numbers, first as tourists, then as investors, road builders, real estate developers and development partners. I knew there was no going back on this and the face of Kenya would change forever. The foundation for a lasting friendship, based on mutual respect, mutual benefit and common prosperity was laid.

The author is a management consultant at Selwood Consultants in Nairobi and the former Kenyan ambassador to China. Contact the writer at hukkawario@yahoo.com.The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 08/30/2013 page10)