Foreign Affairs wants stronger ties with China

(MENAFN - The Post) MASERU -FOREIGN Affairs Minister 'Mat�epo Ramakoae wants Lesotho to dump the West and strengthen its ties with communist China.'We should be asking ourselves if we still get anything from Europeans or we might as well look up to Communists for help,' Ramakoae told parliament yesterday. Ramakoae said she wanted to 'rationalise the ministry by expanding to countries like China'.She added that they are now busy trying to find out if they will expand even to the Middle East where Lesotho has only one consulate in Kuwait.'We need to go to open a consulate in Saudi Arabia or Qatar so that we start working together with them,' she said. Furthermore, she said 90 percent of her budget is blown on foreign missions, adding that they use a lot of dollars to pay for the ambassadors' children at schools and even their medical bills.Ramakoae was asking parliament to allocate M429.1 million to her ministry with which she said she would, among others, run the embassies and consulates. Ramakoae's All Basotho Convention (ABC) spokesman, Montoeli Masoetsa, said they are developing a policy on how to deal with the embassies.'There is no use in keeping the embassies if they are not benefitting us as a country,' Masoetsa said. 'So, we have to go to other countries where we will be able to get investors that could help boost the country's investment climate,' he said.'It is so unfortunate that Lesotho is a country that deploys envoys in foreign missions that do not bring any value to its people.'He said Lesotho usually deploys people who do not have any expertise about diplomatic relations. But it focuses on political inclinations of the envoys.Masoetsa said the country should be put first and later the political inclinations.'We have to sit down and put politics aside and look for the future of the country,' he said. The Basotho National Party (BNP) deputy leader, Machesetsa Mofomobe, who is also Ramakoae's deputy in the government, said 'it is suicidal that we can publicly announce that our relations with a certain country or a bloc is valueless'. 'We live in a global world where there is influence from economically or militarily strong countries or a group of countries,'Mofomobe said.He said the European Union, the United Kingdom and the Unites States are so influential that 'it is unwise to say you are shifting from this to go to another'. Mofomobe said the support Lesotho got and is continuing to get from the EU, the UK and the US is immeasurable hence it is important for Lesotho to be loyal to these countries.At the same time, he said, the Brix bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China,and South Africa is growing rapidly in influence. 'We are aware that the US is the richest economy in the world but in the next 30 years it is predicted that China will surpass it,' he said.'We, as the BNP, cannot say we have to shift our diplomatic ties from here to there. We have to widen our diplomatic relations in line with Basotho's interests at the time,' he said 'It is the BNP's foreign policy.'He said it is important to remember that when several countries moved their embassies to Pretoria the US and the EU remained 'and they have always been with us'.'Also, the Chinese Embassy is here with us and it is not there in Pretoria.'He said the BNP supports China's one-state-two-administrations policy in its relations with Taiwan. Staff Reporter Like this:Like Loading...MENAFN13042021000229011070ID1101909775