From downtown shops that stock cheap clothing and shoes that fall apart after one wear, to mining concessions in platinum, gold and diamonds – the Chinese finger is now in virtually every Zimbabwean pie.

In 2008, bread cost 35 million Zimbabwean dollars and the country began printing large bills like this 100 billion dollar one. Credit: Wikicommons

From city sidewalks to low-income suburbs, the Chinese have become part of the local population, and if some senior government bureaucrats have their way, the country could soon find itself adopting the Chinese Yuan as its official currency.

For some influential monetary policy czars, the massive assailing of the Zimbabwean economy by the Chinese now only requires the Yuan to strengthen these economic reconstruction efforts.

Invited by President Robert Mugabe as part of his infamous 2004 “Look East” policy to participate in driving the economy and employment creation, after relations with former traditional investment partners the European Union and United States soured, China has been able to create its own little sphere of influence and establish an ubiquitous presence in Zimbabwe.

This is despite being unpopular with Zimbabwe’s industrial and commercial players, and general members of the public who accuse the Chinese of poor labour practices and shoddy goods and services.

Late last year, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, seen by many as a close ally of Mugabe, announced he was in favour of having the Chinese Yuan as the country’s official currency. After the Zimbabwean dollar was suspended in 2008, the country has been using a multi-currency regime, which includes the use of the U.S. greenback, the South African Rand and the Botswana Pula.

According to Gono, the Chinese Yuan would be introduced alongside the Zimbabwean dollar. Mugabe’s political supporters have been calling for currency reforms to bring back the Zimbabwean dollar.

“With the continuous firming of the Chinese Yuan, the U.S. dollar is fast ceasing to be the world’s reserve currency and the Euro-Zone debt crisis has made things even worse. As a country, we still have the opportunity to avoid being caught napping by adopting the Chinese Yuan as part of consolidating the country’s “Look East” policy,” Gono told state media in November last year.

“It’s only recently when we had the startling revelations with Angola offering to bail out her former colonial master Portugal from her debt crisis. This can also happen with Zimbabwe if we choose the right path,” Gono said.

He continued: “If we continue with our “Look East” policy, it will not be long when we will also be volunteering to bail out Britain from her debt crisis and I will not wait for my creator’s day before this happen. There is no doubt that the Yuan, with its ascendancy, will be the 21st century’s world reserve currency.”

Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front officials see huge potential in using the Yuan, citing the growth of the Chinese economy under BRICS, which brings together emerging global economic powerhouses Brazil, India, China and South Africa.

But not everyone is as upbeat about such prospects.

There are concerns that this could mean “handing over” the country to the Chinese who already have been offered huge mining rights by Mugabe despite protests from his coalition government partners. The country’s Finance Minister Tendai Biti has said that Mugabe is forfeiting state resources to China, whom critics are calling Africa’s new coloniser.

Economist Eric Bloch told IPS “it is not practical” for Zimbabwe to adopt the Chinese Yuan.

“Zimbabwe won’t have any interaction with international markets as the U.S. dollar remains the standard currency in international trade,” Bloch told IPS.

With China increasingly being touted to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy, the temptation to embrace all things Chinese has proven too much to resist for poor economies across the globe, contends Tafara Zivanayi, an economics lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.

“There has been false hope given to Chinese economic growth with many African countries imagining they can transfer this growth to their own economies,” Zivanayi told IPS.

“Such decisions (to adopt a foreign currency) as usually based on international trade indices and monetary policies of the country where the currency is domiciled. Even if there have been projections that the Chinese economy will surpass the U.S. economy, this won’t happen overnight,” Zivanayi told IPS.

“There are still concerns about Chinese penetration of international, especially low income, markets and creating wealth for itself and not host countries,” Zivanayi said.

Even traders who have long ridiculed cheap Chinese products and have no grasp of international trade intricacies find themselves offering opinions about the prospects of adopting the Chinese Yuan.

“As long as things have worked fine for us using the American dollar, why change that formula?” Thabani Moyo, a commuter omnibus driver. His colleagues, who are struggling to handle giving change in the varying currencies of the dollar, the South African rand and the Botswana Pula, nodded in agreement

Zimbabwe does not have coins of the various currencies and shops and retailers struggle to give their customers change.

Gono and other opponents of the US greenback cited this lack of change in coins as a reason why Zimbabwe needed to adopt a single currency or revert to its own, useless dollar.

However, during the presentation of the national budget for the 2012 fiscal year, Biti told parliament that Zimbabwe would continue using the dollar until the economy stabilised.

Not everyone supports the introduction of the Chinese Yuan. “We want real money, not zhing-zhong,” taxi driver Jourbet Buthelezi told IPS, referring to the pejorative term Zimbabweans use for sub-standard Chinese goods.

There are some unlikely comparisons between the work lives of Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller who sparked the Arab revolution, and Francis Tachirev, a fruit seller in Zimbabwe.

Francis Tachirev, a fruit seller in Zimbabwe lives in fear of the local police confiscating his goods. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

The protests that started it all began after Bouazizi burnt himself after the police confiscated his fruit-vending cart. Nationwide protests after Bouaziz’s death led to Tunisia’s former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fleeing the country and giving up power. Bouaziz’s dramatic death changed the world, starting what is now referred to as the Arab Spring.

Like Bouazizi did, Tichareva earns a modest living pushing his fruit cart along Harare’s central business district, selling his wares. And like Bouazizi too, Tichareva lives in fear of the local police confiscating his goods, especially now that the Zimbabwean Police and the Harare City Council have launched a campaign to drive illegal vendors out of the city.

Tichareva began work as a fruit vendor in 2008 when the clothing factory he worked at closed.

“I got tired of looking for a job and the only way to earn a living was to make this cart and start selling fruit,” Tichareva told IPS as he kept an eye out for the police patrolling the streets of Harare.

The police and council officials move around the city in trucks arresting vendors who sell goods without a licence and confiscating their merchandise. The raids are often violent as the vendors have now organised themselves and are fighting back. On Jan. 11 the Harare city centre came to a standstill as the police and vendors fought, with vendors throwing stones at the police.

During the first two weeks of January several police officers were left injured and a police post in the centre of town was forced to close during the clashes. The local newspaper The Zimbabwean reported that two vendors had to be hospitalised after being tortured by police. The newspaper also said the reporters from the local newspaper the Daily News had been detained by police for covering the event.

Although the protests are a long way from sparking a revolution in Zimbabwe, the determination of vendors to fight for their livelihoods is a sign that people will no longer remain silent about their suffering.

University of Zimbabwe political lecturer who studies political and social trends, Eldred Masunungure, told the local Daily News newspaper that although it is unheard of in Zimbabwe to fight with the police, the fact that civilians are starting to do so is a sign of the times.

“The people are fed-up with their suffering and that could be the only way they can show off their bitterness. Most of them have been trying to earn a living from vending but only for the police to act hard on them,” Masunungure told the Daily News. “They could have decided to revert back at police officers because they were tired with the situation.”

Many of the vendors, like Tichareva, cannot afford to pay 125 dollars a month in licence fees for a legal permit to sell fruit in the city. Tichareva told IPS that he only makes, at most, 90 dollars a month.

And like Bouazizi, he is fed up with the police. Bouazizi’s story is one that has not escaped the notice of this street vendor in this Southern African nation.

Close to where Tichareva sells his wares are newspaper vendors and he usually sneaks a look at the daily headlines. He told IPS that he read about Bouazizi but will not contemplate burning himself even though he faces the same challenges that Bouazizi did.

“I read the story but I will not kill myself. If the police attack me, I will fight back,” said Tichareva adding, “We work hard but they stretch us too much what do they want us to do?”

Many other vendors share Tichareva’s sentiments. Several women and men continue to swarm the walkways in central Harare selling all types of merchandise in defiance of the police clampdown.

“We fight the police because they are the ones who started attacking us. They took our goods to eat or sell at their houses when we also looking to survive,” Tafadzwa Nyamupfachitu, a 27-year-old mother of six-year-old triplets, told IPS.

She earns a living for her family by selling fruit, cigarettes and cell phone airtime. “We are angered by this because we also want to survive. We must enjoy ourselves in our country of birth freely. If we don’t survive that way there is no life for us because we cannot become criminals or turn to prostitution for a living,” she said.

The police have, however, vowed to step up the arrests until the city is organised.

Harare councillor and chairman of the Elected Councillors Association of Zimbabwe, Warship Dumba, said the arrests are necessary to maintain order in the city.

“They must operate from designated areas,” said Dumba of the vendors.

Dumba’s comments come at a time when 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s people of a working age are unemployed, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Most of the vendors used to work in industries that have since closed due to the country’s long-running economic crisis.

The Committee of the People Charter (CPC), a grouping of like-minded Zimbabweans fighting for pro- people policies, said in a statement that the clampdown on vendors is a sign of the council’s ignorance of how important these informal traders are to the economy.

“The council has no understanding of the importance of the informal economy to the livelihoods of thousands of Zimbabweans. It is demonstrating not only ignorance, but insensitivity, to the interests and circumstances that residents must confront,” CPC said in its statement.

“The CPC calls for an immediate end to these undemocratic actions of disenfranchising the poor and for the council to immediately come up with a comprehensive employment and job creation plan.”

But Dumba still maintains that street vendors need licences to operate in the city.

“We can’t let people cause total confusion in the city centre just because there is too much unemployment in the country. We cannot allow people to just sell their things anywhere. We are worried about health and hygiene issues.”

Bouazizi may be long gone but his fight to earn a decent living remains a common one for the poor and marginalised in Africa.

Joel Njagi and his son Tinashe sell axes and hoes for a living. They are some of the vendors in central Harare who have clashed with the police in the recent protests.

They have known no other job except making and selling hoes and axes. For them times are tough and they will do anything they can to hang on to their livelihoods. The elder Njagi vowed to take his axe to the head of “anyone who tries to take my property.”

Tinashe Zuze’s story is a typical one of Zimbabwe’s professionals who have shunned formal employment. Instead of working for someone else, Zuze left his job as a bank teller and entered into the world of “wheeling and dealing” in illegal foreign currency.

Many Zimbabweans have shunned formal employment. Credit: Stanley Kwenda

It turned many into wealthy business people overnight since “the day the dollar died.” Economists call it Black Friday. On Nov. 14, 1997 the Zimbabwean dollar crashed under the weight of unbudgeted spending.

The cause was President Robert Mugabe’s handsome payouts or “gratuities” to veterans of the 1970s liberation struggle. The overspending sent the country’s economy into a spiral, which is still being felt today.

Zuze’s fortunes faired well at first, and then took a turn for the worse. He first acquired stupendous wealth during the “crazy days” of illegal foreign currency dealing in the early 2000s. But he fell on hard times after the introduction of the multi-currency regime in 2009. But he was not defeated and re- invented himself as an importer of second-hand vehicles from Japan.

“It’s been a terrible life,” he mused.

But as the country prepares for elections, which long-time ruler Mugabe wants held this year and which will bring an end to Zimbabwe’s crisis-ridden coalition government, calls have emerged from some political elites for currency reforms to bring back the Zimbabwean dollar.

“I don’t understand why anyone has the gall to call for the return of the Zim dollar,” he said.

“This is the money that impoverished many people and forced me to do all kinds of deals and I recall having stacks and stacks of these dollars and failing to get rid of the useless notes,” Zuze said.

At the height of the economic chaos in November 2008, consumers had to carry sacks and wheelbarrows of cash just to buy small items like milk or bread. Overnight, the cost of bread jumped from two million Zimbabwean dollars to 35 million. It was considered by some analysts as one of the worst cases of hyperinflation of all time.

Since the introduction of the multi-currency regime, where transactions are now carried out in the United States dollar, South African Rand and the Botswana Pula, what was once the world’s fastest- shrinking economy is now on the path of slow but sure growth. Proof of this can been seen in the stores as shop shelves are now full after years of botched government price controls spurred acute shortages of basic commodities.

However, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu PF), the party widely blamed for the country’s economic ruin, has increased its calls for the return of the local currency ahead of elections. The party has criticised the United States greenback for perpetuating the country’s global economic hegemony.

Analysts are in agreement that Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has created extremes of both wealth and poverty, destroying the middle class in the process, as salaries remain stagnant, creating ideal conditions for wildcat strikes. But economists and ordinary members of the public are concerned that the return of the dollar could spell disaster.

Respected Bulawayo economist Dr. Eric Bloch, who also sits on the board of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said the re-introduction of the local currency would be a “total disaster” for the economy.

“The return of the Zimbabwean dollar will fuel massive inflation and return the country to the economic chaos of 2008 as in real terms the currency will be valueless,” Bloch told IPS.

“I agree with Finance Minister Tendai Biti that the country should maintain the present situation where the country is using the U.S. dollar. The Zimbabwean dollar means the country will not be able to access international lines of credit as this hinges on the ability to generate foreign currency,” he said.

For political analyst and academic Donald Sithole, the return of the Zimbabwean dollar could be a recipe for social upheaval.

“We have seen it elsewhere, disgruntled masses taking to the streets not because of political grievances but increasingly to demand economic justice, and the history of the Zimbabwe dollar era could point to the return of worse strife for ordinary people,” Sithole told IPS.

“The global financial crisis ought to be a lesson. But we are obviously seeing complacent politicians who think the street protests seen across the world will not happen here because of their renowned repression. But people can only take this to a limited extent. I believe we are treading on dangerous ground,” he said.

As the school term opened early January, teacher unions hinted they would boycott classes as they call for for salary increases at a time when the government has approved hefty allowance increments for legislators.

“These people want the return of the dollar so that they can loot our resources like they used to,” said Gamaliel Siziba, a secondary school headmaster, referring to long-standing accusations of institutionalised corruption against Zanu PF officials.

“This is just insane. We are led by educated people but these are the solutions they offer for economic recovery,” Siziba said.

He is not the only one against the return of the failed currency.

Vegetable vendor Catherine Moyo is of the opinion that the return of the local currency will bring untold suffering.

“It looks to me that all of us, besides the politicians, know that the return of the (Zimbabwean) dollar will only mean more suffering as this will mean that forex will disappear from our streets,” Moyo said. A thriving illegal foreign currency market had been blamed for the artificial price distortions for basic commodities in 2008.