Overjoyed

In the year 2000, the Chinese Central Government decided to select a number of candidates from the outside of the Foreign Ministry as reserve ambassadors. After rigorous selection procedures including recommendation, qualification review, written test, interview, assessment and approval, I, who was then Director General of the Bureau of African Affairs of the CPC International Department, became one of the final 12 candidates. We were then sent to the Foreign Ministry for a three-month intensive training. At the end of the course, I was informed of the decision by the NPC Standing Committee about my appointment as China’s Ambassador to Ethiopia.

 

I was overjoyed at the news, because I had many good friends in Ethiopia’s ruling party. In 1991, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front（EPRDF）gained power after years of armed struggle, ushering in a new phase for the China-Ethiopia relations.  In 1994, EPRDF sent a delegation to China, and marked the start of friendly exchanges between the two countries. What else was special about this delegation was its high profile composition. Six out of the twenty members of EPRDF National Executive Committee, the central leadership of the Party, were included. They stayed in China for two weeks and I accompanied them the whole time. I was deeply impressed by their friendly feelings about China, their trust in the CPC, and their earnest attitude when learning from the CPC’s governance experiences.

 

Overjoyed though, I also felt the heavy responsibility on my shoulders. I had no work experience in embassies or consulates before and my first overseas diplomatic mission would be an ambassador, not mentioning under such a special background. All that I could do was to remain humble and prudent, and try my best to fulfill the mission, so as to prove worthy of the trust on me.

Ideas at the beginning of my term

After assuming the post, based on preliminary studies and my past diplomatic practices, I had the following judgments. Firstly, Ethiopia is a friendly nation. There were emotional factor and ideological factor in it including my long-term personal association with the country. But more importantly, the two countries have consistent fundamental interests. Secondly, China and Ethiopia need each other. China has wide-range interests in international affairs, thus needs the support of Ethiopia on many aspects. For Ethiopia, upholding pragmatic diplomacy, it hopes to promote national economic development and social advancement through international relations. Thirdly, the bilateral relations face both opportunities and challenges. Most obviously, the sound political relationship between the two countries was not fully transformed into effective economic cooperation yet. There were some new highlights in non-traditional trade and economic cooperation, but new problems emerged as well. Choosing the road of market economic development based on its national conditions, Ethiopia defined the role of the state government in national economic development as infrastructure construction, human resources development and market economic regime building. Therefore, it warmly welcomed Chinese companies to participate in the international biddings of its construction projects, hoping that bilateral economic cooperation would directly serve its economic ambition. However, after winning the biddings, Chinese companies had delay problems in some contracted projects. Another problem was that Ethiopia hoped that China could share more expertise in economic development by sending experts, contracting construction project management and conducting training activities instead of giving assistance in cash. But due to coordination problem among different relevant authorities back in China, these proposals were shelved. In view of this, I strongly felt the necessity of innovating the current form of bilateral cooperation to make it more suitable to both sides’ actual situations, needs and possibilities.

 

I then wrote a report about my thoughts which were accepted by the Central Government.

Overcoming Difficulties

Through field studies, I located the major progress made in bilateral cooperation, and found that mutually beneficial cooperation had gradually become important form of bilateral economic and trade relations. Ethiopia earnestly wanted to make its international economic cooperation serve its economic development strategy and hoped to cash in as soon as possible. As a result, it had high expectations from China. Firstly, it wanted to learn China’s experiences in economic development. Secondly, it wanted to attract more Chinese companies to participate in the biddings of its infrastructure projects so as to lower the cost and accelerate technology transfer. Thirdly, it wanted China to extend help in its capacity building and HR development through training. In the long run, it also wanted more Chinese companies to directly invest in Ethiopia and set up business there. Through joint efforts, large number of Chinese companies entered Ethiopian market of construction projects. But things did not turn out as expected. Delays were common among Chinese contracted projects. The main reason was that overseas contracted construction projects were quite different from either construction projects in the general sense or aid projects. The manager of the former must be multi-functional, who not only knows technology and project management well, but also speaks foreign language well and is good at communicating with owners, supervisors, trade unions, local governments or even judicial organs. Chinese companies at that time didn’t have such professionals. It was only when China began to build the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Expressway that it had for the first time adopted the FIDIC Conditions of Contracts of the World Bank. Therefore, by the time there was a severe shortage of compound talents at disposal. Aware of this, I decided to do something. To the Ethiopian side, I expressed high appreciation for its efforts in promoting mutually beneficial cooperation, explaining that Chinese companies that were long under the planned economy in the past, were still inexperienced in doing overseas projects. They needed to understand international practices as soon as possible, gain more experiences and build up capacity. But this process required the support from both Chinese and Ethiopian governments. I also frankly told the Ethiopian side that their owners and supervisors were partially responsible for the delays as well, and annulling the original contracts for rebidding was in neither side’s interests. The best way was to sit together to work out solution and draw a new project schedule. At the same time, I asked the Chinese companies to sort out problems, draw lessons from them and learn how to operate overseas projects. Meanwhile, I informed relevant authorities and business headquarters in China of the whole situation and tried to get necessary support from them. After all this, although problems were not totally solved, at least a crisis in bilateral relations was averted.

 

Things with China’s participation in Ethiopia’s capacity building and HR development had been relatively smooth. With the unfolding of Ethiopia’s national plan for rural education and urban vocational training, more and more Chinese teachers came to Ethiopia and went to teach at a number of different places in the country. Just within my ambassadorial term, over 200 Chinese teachers participated in this cooperation program, to whom I had paid several visits at their workplaces hundreds of miles away from the capital city. There were difficulties and sometimes sacrifices in the process, but we gained more. Not only have we promoted the China-Ethiopia cooperation, but we have also enriched our own life experience. Thanks to this cooperation program, Ethiopia’s national vocational training plan was successfully carried out, mutual understanding and friendship between the two countries were further deepened, life of many Ethiopian trainees were changed ever after, and Chinese teachers involved were also rewarded with valuable experience and memories.

 

Under my watch, the bilateral cooperation was expanded with wider range, richer forms and larger scale. My hard work and efforts were not in vain. They were paid back by deeper friendship of my motherland with Ethiopia.

Fruits of Cooperation

At the beginning of the new century, concrete cooperation in various fields between China and Ethiopia had not only harvested friendship, but also earned for China Ethiopia’s strong support and coordination for its initiative to cement and boost friendly exchanges with African countries—the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. 

 

In December 2003, the Second Ministerial Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was held in Addis Ababa. Premier Wen Jiabao attended the opening ceremony and paid an official visit to Ethiopia. The Premier’s plane landed at the Bole International Airport of Addis Ababa in the evening of December 14th. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was at the airport to welcome him. The DG of Protocol Department of Ethiopian Foreign Ministry and I embarked on the plane to escort Premier Wen. At the end of the aircraft steps, Prime Minister Meles and Premier Wen shook hands warmly. Prime Minister Meles also introduced to Premier Wen other high ranking Ethiopian officials who were present. Then, Premier Wen greeted the welcoming crowd consisted of people from the Chinese Embassy and agencies, shaking hands with each of them. The whole scene was warm and touching. 

 

On the morning of December 15th, the welcome ceremony was held at the National Palace, and Premier Wen reviewed the guard of honor. When the Chinese national anthem was played by the military band, I couldn’t help feeling an upsurge of emotion. This was undoubtedly my finest moment as an ambassador.

Following the ceremony was an official meeting between the two leaders. Both sides spoke highly of the bilateral relations and put forward suggestions on how to further deepen friendly cooperation between the two countries. After the meeting, the two leaders attended the signing ceremony together.

 

Then Premier Wen went to the UN Conference Center to attend the opening ceremony of the Second Ministerial Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. The Meeting was chaired by foreign ministers from China and Ethiopia alternately. Prime Minister Meles, Premier Wen and other African Heads of State and Government addressed the meeting. After the opening ceremony, Premier Wen invited his African counterparts to join him in visiting a photo exhibition on China-Africa cooperation.

 

At noon, Premier Wen went to the National Palace again to attend the welcome banquet hosted by the Ethiopian Government. After that, he called on the Ethiopian President.

In the afternoon, Premier Wen met with other African leaders who were attending the Forum at his hotel.

 

In the evening, Prime Minister Meles hosted a grand banquet in the honor of foreign leaders, delegations and entrepreneurs. Ethiopian and Chinese artists also staged wonderful performances during the banquet, which were well received by the audience with rounds of applause.

 

In the morning of 16th, Premier Wen received staff from the Chinese Embassy and agencies, Chinese participants to the Forum as well as Chinese performers and flight crew, and delivered an important speech.

 

In the afternoon, Premier Wen and Prime Minister Meles jointly unveiled the commemorating sculpture for the China-Africa Cooperation Forum and then bid farewell to each other at the airport. With that, Premier Wen’s visit to Ethiopia was successfully concluded. After seeing off Premier Wen, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing returned to the Forum venue to preside over the closing ceremony of the Ministerial Meeting and then met with the press jointly with his Ethiopian counterpart.

 

In the afternoon of 17th, Foreign Minister Li joined the Mayor of Addis Ababa in the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the “Ethiopia-China Friendship Avenue”. In the evening, he paid a visit to the Chinese Embassy before going to the airport.

Epilogue

In mid-July of 2004, the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress appointed Lin Lin as my successor.

 

On August 20th of 2004, my last work day in Ethiopia, I paid a farewell visit to Prime Minister Meles at his office. I expressed my appreciation for the great value he put on the bilateral relations. He said, “there is no permanent term for an ambassador. Even the best ambassador has to leave the country he serves in sooner or later. But at least you have two things that you can be proud of upon your departure. First, professionally speaking, you are very good at debugging. A loose screw may derail the entire train. But you have the ability to ensure all parts in appropriate tightness so as to keep the train of bilateral relations safely on track and in due speed. Second, we have had many Chinese ambassadors, but you apparently have more friends than them. Your friends, Ethiopian or Chinese, are treasures of yours.” Prime Minister Meles’ words were very touching and his meeting with me was the best conclusion of my ambassadorial term.

 

My three years and five months as the Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia were the most glorious days of my life.