If you think China's cuddle-fest with slimeball Zimbabwean dictator Robert (Buck) Mugabe is being greeted with unfettered joy on the streets of Harare, you haven't read this interesting Reuters story:

President Robert Mugabe sees China as an important ally in pulling Zimbabwe out of its economic crisis, but critics warn the government is opening the door to what cynics already call "the Chinese Invasion".

The veteran leader, isolated from Western donors over policy differences with his government, has sought stronger ties with Arab and Asian countries under a "Look East" policy that has seen Chinese business boom in Zimbabwe in recent years.

Mugabe, presiding over an economy saddled with acute shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food, record inflation, unemployment and a foreign debt of more than $4.5 billion, is now in China on a quest for a rescue package.

He appears to have got what he went for and on Tuesday signed a deal with Beijing on economic and technical cooperation, although details were not revealed.

At home in Harare, the official pronouncements of fraternal friendship between China and Zimbabwe are met with scepticism.

From: China saviour to Mugabe, but critics see 'invasion', by Stella Mapenzauswa, Reuters, July 28 2005.

Uh oh. Where's the love? Everything seemed so perfect yesterday, but in the cold light of morning the mist is fading from the diplomatic beer-goggles. Some economic criticism (from an economist now no doubt slated for re-assignment to the Harare University of Broken Ribs):

"I don't think the Chinese do anything for nothing and it's obvious the deal will be very much to China's advantage. It's very likely that they will want to be paid in commodities probably for many years to come," said leading Harare-based economist John Robertson.

"China might want to use Zimbabwe as a launching pad to export into the rest of Africa and it is a very big threat to Zimbabwe's industries. The Chinese are competing the local industries right out of existence because they land their goods at much lower prices," Robertson told Reuters.

And, for good measure, some vox-populi:

On Thursday, businessman John Shoko lamented how his small clothes-making business was foundering against an onslaught of cheap Chinese clothes shops that have flooded the market.

"It's an invasion. Every other person you meet on the street is wearing something Chinese," said Shoko.

"The clothes we make are of higher quality, but more expensive. Times are hard, people are cash-strapped and cheaper is better right now," he told Reuters.

My gosh. The Zimbabweans are just like us! Where's Patton Boggs when you need them?

[Analysts] say resentment lurks, even among Mugabe's own lieutenants.

When the government launched a crackdown against urban shantytowns, a senior member of the ruling party, Nyasha Chikwinya, urged police to act against Chinese nationals she said led black-market trading in foreign currency.

And many, like newspaper columnist Lovemore Mukono, are not convinced China offers any solution towards reviving an economy that was once one of Africa's most promising.

"Can we really base our future on the Chinese traders, whose main interest, and rightly so, is to find a market for cheap imitations," Mukono wrote in the private-owned Standard newspaper.

The article points out that China is the largest buyer of Zimbabwean tobacco and that China has also supplied aircraft and busses to help upgrade Zimbabwe's aging fleets. But it looks like some of that is being lost on the Zimbabwean public, who seem not so far apart from the US in seeing China primarily as competition for their own businesses. For the record, I think the US obsesses far too much about this, but, then, we have a healthier and far more diversified economy than poor, fading Zimbabwe.

Perhaps, in addition to its newly revamped US lobbying and PR efforts, China should invest in a little more grass-roots PR at street level in Zimbabwe, to try to get the Zimbabwean people on board with the program. And if that doesn't work, it can always follow the Robert (Butch) Mugabe approach and beat them into compliance.