With its fast growing economy and appetite for industrial inputs and trade, China is increasingly becoming an ideal partner for doing business with. In turn, Kenya has great plans in its development agenda, which can be achieved faster with effective diplomatic engagement with China. The Kenya Embassy in Beijing is about this effective diplomatic engagement.

In this inaugurating of our Kenya Embassy Website, we take this opportunity to briefly discuss our diplomatic work in China. The intention is to highlight these areas of diplomacy and on our performance. This also lays out the path we intend to travel. The Mission is delighted to do this because it is such great opportunity to work in this wonderful country. It is a pleasant and honourable opportunity because one can actually see oneself playing a useful role in the implementation of the development plans of the country in many areas and in the achievement of the Vision 2030.

Diplomacy has a role to play in all the pillars of Vision 2030; Economic, Social and Political pillars and China offers the possibility of engagement in all these areas of implementation of the Vision.

Careful work planning is necessary for that effective diplomatic engagement and requires well thought out activities, timing, and analysis of the resources available in order to realize goals. In turn, the goals must be clear. Without clear goals, you cannot tell exactly what is achievable and whether it’s satisfactory. This leads to getting linkage to the issue of strategic planning and determining our performance areas. It is not easy to strategise in diplomatic service because many matters are not in your control but all the same, it is good to have some plan to fall back to when you want to think of the possible achievements.

And therefore the Mission is always pleased to discuss what it considers to be the areas of diplomatic engagement and modalities of going about it and welcomes comments and information on whether its thinking is in the right direction.

Trade: There are many capital goods, which can be sourced from China. At the same time, China could buy our commodities such as Tea, Coffee, Horticulture, Minerals and ASAL Products such as Aloe, Sisal and Legumes. Other than the traditional crops of coffee, tea and horticulture, we need to think of non tradition produce such as products of the ASALs which have huge potential in that there are many new products that can be processed from them and China seems to be number one in trying such new products.

China happens to have the technology, which can be used to process these products in large scale to add value and also buy the products for the consumption by its large domestic market. The Mission intends to work and interest the Chinese to cooperate with Kenya and develop very interesting and useful products of ASALs. This will have a big impact on trade in general and in the development of ASALs; a key goal of Vision 2030.

And in trade diplomacy, we will ensure that there is fair trade between Kenya and China. At present there are many complaints on standards and non-fulfillment of trade agreements between individual traders.

Technology: China has the appropriate technologies required for the development of Kenya SMEs and industrialize our rural areas. These are simple technologies such as for packaging or preserving and adding value to agricultural produce such as vegetables, fruits and legumes. There is also opportunity to obtain technology by involving Chinese in prospecting, mining and processing of various materials found in Kenya. China can find use of some minerals found in ASALs, which so far remain unexploited. One only needs to go through the geological map of Kenya and see the many useful minerals there are but have remained as potential for many years.

To support technology development, we also have our students’ taking courses in various fields: in engineering fields, medicine and in agriculture. The work of the Mission will be said to be bearing fruit if there are more students taking courses in Chinese Universities and also more Chinese students and scholars in our institutions. Already our universities are collaborating and we have serious Research and Development work being undertaken in various fields jointly between Universities. There are also many short-term Professional Training opportunities offered by institutions in both countries.

Finance: - China has the capacity to on-lend with easy terms especially to support import of the afore mentioned technologies. Even the Treasury of a country like USA has a lot financing from China. There is therefore a big cake here if we could interest China to offer us just a small portion. We see an opportunity for our institutions like KIE, ICDC, IDB and other similar Public Institutions to get funds for on-lending. Already China has offered US $ 5.0 Billion to finance development in Africa through the China Africa Development Fund. We also see an opportunity for large Chinese Companies producing capital goods able to export to Kenya and with easier terms because security for the goods can be arranged between the Chinese financiers, Kenya Company (ies) and the capital goods supplier. The Mission will seek to facilitate such partnerships.

In all these economic diplomacy, we expect to see an impact on our infrastructure, comparable to that of China, which has left many a visitor in bewilderment. Already China is undertaking a number of infrastructural projects in Kenya such as in road construction, telecommunications – lying of the fibre optic cable.

Social:- China is influencing many aspects of international social life. Chinese is one of the UN languages and therefore; in learning Chinese, one would be way a head in understanding first hand international matters. With a population of about one fifth of the World Population, it is such a great social power such that Chinese culture is permitting to the cultures of other peoples in the world. China obtains coffee from countries in Europe while Kenya is the producer of the best coffee. In these changing days, and as more and more Chinese take to drinking coffee; Kenya invites China to buy her coffee as well as visiting Kenya as Tourists. Our economy would change drastically for the better. Chinese Culture has been changed little in spite of great efforts by foreign powers over the ages to influence it. There is much to learn from such a resilient culture. We will learn more of this culture by interacting with China in the areas of Arts and Sports and the Mission is working hard to facilitate such interaction.

Political Diplomacy:- China today is at the centre of the world stage. It has a role in areas of political developments in the world. China has excelled as a world power Economically, Militarily, Socially and Culturally if we could use such terminology. We have seen how China is influencing the going-ons in the world because of its growing superiority in all these areas. The Diplomat has therefore to understand this growing influence of China and know what are the implications to events all over the world.

And in these days of great historical importance, even critics have started to appreciate the soundness of Chinese leadership style. The financial crisis has hit mighty powers of democracy and left the well organised Chinese society with no more than a bruise. Because of the foregoing, China is playing a great role in Governance of all the International Institutions especially the UN System; it is playing a role in the eradication of poverty and in establishing World Peace. Already China is helping many nations of the world fulfill the Millennium Development Goals.

Consular work – all these interactions will result into more consular work. People will be traveling between the countries; some will have some difficulties and thus requiring assistance. Already, the Mission is handling a lot of consular work much greater than may have been envisioned just five years ago.

The Kenya Mission Beijing China would like to be a model in fulfilling its mandate as above envisioned.