Zigani Saturnin (left), a student from Burkina Faso, is advised on growing methods at an experimental farm in Quzhou county, Hebei province, in July. Saturnin was among foreign students visiting from China Agricultural University. Agriculture is an important area for collaboration between China and Africa. ZHU XUDONG/XINHUA
Firm direction has been vital in China's efforts to raise living standards, providing inspiration for Africans in growth quest, Kenyan politician says
Raphael Tuju, secretary-general of the ruling Jubilee Party in Kenya and a cabinet secretary without portfolio, has said China's growth over the past few decades has been too rapid for the West to grasp.
Speaking in Nairobi, Tuju congratulated the people of China for having lifted more than 850 million people from poverty in only about 40 years.
"I still remember back then when we were in school, the image of China in our heads was that of a Chinese farmer in a straw hat in a rice field, but fast forward to today and China just recently launched its first independent mission to Mars," he said.
"If you look at that contrast you will understand why no one would have imagined China would be where it is today."
The Chinese miracle has happened so suddenly that the West has not come to terms with it, he said.
"The images that we have from China 20 years ago or 30 years ago are completely different with what China is today," he said.
"The fact that most people in the West have not absorbed the extent of China's development in recent years and have not had a chance to visit the big and modern metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen still makes them think that probably London, New York or Paris are way ahead, because that is how people's thinking in the West has been shaped for several generations. So it will take them a while to understand what a great development China has achieved."
Guangzhou, bathed in light for a festival last month, has undergone a scale of transformation that many in the West and Africa have failed to grasp, according to Raphael Tuju. LI ZHIHAO/FOR CHINA DAILY
Western mentality
"This mentality by the West had been cultivated globally, and I still remember when I was Kenya's foreign affairs minister, it was difficult for me to convince my colleagues in government that we should look East and cultivate stronger ties with China. This was because most of my contemporaries in government had studied in the United States or Europe or the Western countries in general. They had very little knowledge of China, so they would never expect that great things could come from China."
Tuju said a major advantage for the Chinese people that has enabled them to lift millions out of poverty is their system of governance, which is different to that in the West and adopted by most African countries on independence.
"President Xi Jinping did not become the president of China and the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee because of his wealth, but because he had gone through a rigorous process and rank system within the Party, where positions are earned on merit," he said.
The leadership and political system are very important, Tuju said, because the rise and fall of a country is related to its leadership and political system.
"With the right leadership in Africa we should be able to make the transition from being a backward agrarian society to become a more industrialized economy."
Xi's philosophy of helping people out of poverty contributed a lot to the great achievement of China's poverty elimination and building a moderately prosperous, or xiaokang, society, he said.
"There is a saying that if you are poor, that's very bad, but you can still lift yourself to get out of poverty, just like the way China has done. Whereas, if the poverty is in your mentality, that is very difficult to remove. For example, if you think it is very comfortable living in a slum you will never get out of the slum; if the slum is not in you, there is opportunity to get out of it."
Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has enlightened the Chinese people, and African countries admire Xi's resolve and see him as one of the greatest modern leaders of China, whose philosophy will be a subject of studies for many more years to come, Tuju said.
Tuju, born in 1959, started his career as a TV news presenter in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2002 he was elected as a member of parliament. He was minister of information and communications and minister for tourism and wildlife between 2003 and 2005. He then became foreign minister, a post he held until the end of 2007.
In 2017, Tuju became the secretary-general of the newly formed Jubilee Party, and the next year Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta named him as cabinet secretary without portfolio.
