One RMB exchanged for Zimbabwe dollar

When it comes to Zimbabwe, the first thing that many people think of may be the country’s exaggerated currency exchange rate. As of December 2019, the exchange rate between the RMB and the Zimbabwean currency had reached 186 million, which is refreshing. The "rich kids" were starving to death in that place, which was heartbreaking for Tiandi Bank. Tong Ming Bank cried after hearing this, and King Yan boasted that the country had good luck.

Now Zimbabwe is naturally one of the many poor and backward areas in Africa. But what many people may not know is that Zimbabwe was also a prosperous country back then. So what did this country go through before it fell to such a point of ruin?

Although Zimbabwe is having a tough time right now, its foundation is actually ridiculously good. The country is rich in mineral resources, with gold and silver mines everywhere. With plenty of sunshine and fertile soil, anything you plant will grow. People have given you the nickname "African Vegetable Basket", which is a rare Feng Shui treasure land. But the good times didn't last long. In the 16th century, a new shipping route opened, and a large number of European countries flocked to the fertile land of Africa and began to colonize and expand on this continent.

Britain stands with Zimbabwe. Over the next few hundred years, white colonists from England expanded their territory, occupied a large number of high-quality fields and minerals in Zimbabwe, hired slaves to work for them, and persecuted them. In 1930, Britain even passed a law restricting black people's rights to purchase land.

By the mid-20th century, World War II ended. Britain had won the war as a country, but as a world colonial empire, it could be said that it had nothing. Because Churchill signed the "Atlantic Charter" to obtain American assistance during World War II and recognized the right of all colonies to pursue independence, the British colonial system sounded the death knell with the end of World War II.

After World War II, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, joined forces to encourage the independence of the British colonies. Zimbabwe, as one of the few good places under British command, was naturally not immune.

However, the British are still very experienced in international relations. Although hard power could not defeat the United States and the Soviet Union, they could only admit frame-up when they dismembered their colonies. However, their little moves never stop.

Under the arrangements of the British, Zimbabwe had the same problem as South Africa, that is, whites and blacks lived together, and a small number of whites had greater advantages at the social level. From the British point of view, if the white people are stabilized, Zimbabwe will not be able to overturn the world.

The white people in Zimbabwe are basically colonists who came to Africa to make a fortune. They enjoy the fertile land passed down from generation to generation, take the lead in learning the advanced experience of Britain and the United States, engage in agricultural mechanization, set up factories, and open mines. For a period of time, they basically monopolized all high-end industries and economic lifelines in Zimbabwe, and their life was very happy.

In contrast, the life of black people is very miserable. Not only were blacks often taken into slavery, but their rights to purchase land were also restricted. They either had to work hard together with white farmers, or they could only exchange their hard-earned money for a few acres of thin farmland to make a living, always struggling on the edge of the subsistence line.

And because Zimbabwe, like early South Africa, pursues apartheid policies, blacks and whites cannot intermarry or go to school together, so blacks basically have no chance to skip a grade. For a time, a strange scene appeared in Zimbabwe, with white people's paradise on one side and black people's hell on the other. Therefore, black comrades in Zimbabwe do not want to live in their miserable situation. They joined forces to form major black political parties and organizations in the 1960s, such as the "People's Alliance" and the "Democratic Alliance", calling for the independence movement.

The British thought that after Zimbabwe fed the white people who share the same ancestry with them, they would be obedient and unable to escape. However, this naive idea really does not look like it was thought up by a calculating British person. Ultimately, the United States is a group of British colonists who don't want to pay taxes, but simply rebel and become independent. Now, Britain has to fall into the same pit twice.

Sure enough, the white people in Zimbabwe feel that they have money and mines in their hands, and they really don’t need to listen to the British. So although they suppressed the black brother's independence movement, they also bargained wildly with the British. Seeing that Britain was at the end of its rope, it had no choice but to agree to convene various factions in Zimbabwe to organize a constitutional conference in London in 1979.

In February 1980, Zimbabwe officially became independent and organized democratic elections. Mugabe, the black leader of Zimbabwe, was successfully elected as the first leader.

However, according to the 1979 Constitutional Convention, the Zimbabwean government does not allow the forced confiscation of white land and must use foreign currency to buy and sell ownerless land. This provision cannot be shaken within ten years. The problem is that almost all the good land in Zimbabwe has been eaten up by white people. Although there were only 4,500 white farmers in Zimbabwe at the time, they occupied 75% of Zimbabwe's farmland.

Therefore, the huge racial status gap in Zimbabwe remains indelible. All black people in Zimbabwe have is a black president they voted for. And white people still live like human beings and have the best resources and medical care in Zimbabwe.

But now that Zimbabwe is independent, it is also its own country for the local white people. So white people don’t just get paid and don’t work.

In the first ten years of Zimbabwe's independence, white people invested a certain amount of wealth and resources in education, medical care, sanitation and other undertakings, and achieved many successes, greatly improving the living standards of the local working class and proletariat. Zimbabwe has implemented compulsory primary education and has seen steady increases in infant survival rates, literacy rates and life expectancy. The vaccination rate has also soared from 25% to 85%, and the per capita GDP is stable and improving. In short, although this country has many imperfections, it is still making normal progress.

But in 1990, the capitalist ideology was very popular. Europe and the United States are complacent about their "record" of "defeating" the Soviet Union with neoliberal economic policies, and have asked other countries in the world to follow their lead in economic reforms. Zimbabwe, a former British colony, is no exception.

But as we all know, Britain, a relatively basic country, has engaged in neoliberalism, widening the gap between the rich and the poor, cutting people's welfare, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and increasing the fiscal deficit. After that, social conflicts intensified. If the Soviet Union had not disintegrated in time, it might have been sent away first. Not to mention that Zimbabwe is a country with white and black classes. Therefore, Zimbabwe’s economic policy reforms can be said to have immediate results.

The domestic economy soon fell off a cliff, inflation was serious, people's living standards were deteriorating, and the country was in danger of collapse.

Faced with such a dilemma, Mugabe and others panicked. So they looked through the country's information and found that there was still a group of people they could target - white people.

Of course, since the Mugabe government came to power, it has begun to try to "attack local tyrants and divide the land", grab some resources from white people, and win more fertile land for the black brothers. However, due to numerous obstructions from the British, this policy had little effect. Nowadays, Zimbabwe is in chaos, and everyone is taking to the streets to demonstrate and demand immediate measures against white people. And the economic subsidies promised by the European and American governments outside are just words but not real.

The problem is that white people control the economic lifeline of Zimbabwe. Once there is a big disturbance, the basic country will be paralyzed. For a time, Mugabe was faced with a dilemma: choose black people and lose the country; choose white people and lose both the party and the country.

But Mugabe still chose to attack white people. After all, Zimbabwe is still dominated by black people, and everyone in Europe and the United States knows the virtues of the country. It is famous for its friendly forces to be immovable when trouble comes. Even if you really betray your own skin color and defend the white people, you will wait for the black people to riot and kill them. After entering the presidential palace and hanging a street lamp for themselves, they probably didn't bother to move it.

So in 2000, Mugabe signed and implemented the fastest, strictest and roughest land reform bill in history, ordering all white people's land to be confiscated and distributed to poor black people. As for those white people whose homes were raided overnight for no apparent reason, they should stay where they can. As of 2010, only 0.4% of Zimbabwean land was held by white farms.

Mugabe's actions indeed saved his own power, but it also brought devastating disaster to the country. It can be said that when the country was going downhill, it stepped on the accelerator hard.

Because white people control not only fertile land and rich minerals, but also various advanced production technologies and management models, as well as a large number of human resources. Mugabe did this, and the black brothers got the land, but they couldn't drive a tractor or use fertilizer. They had no skills and no funds, so they were completely unable to maximize the value of the land. Zimbabwe's national productivity level suffered a devastating blow in an instant.

In addition, in order to divert conflicts, the Mugabe government persecuted white people, which naturally angered European and American countries. They took advantage of the situation to blockade Zimbabwe and imposed extremely severe economic sanctions. In Africa, everyone is poor and cannot help each other. For a time, Zimbabwe was in a state of turmoil, with prices soaring and hyperinflation extremely serious. Currencies were issued in excess, and even 10 billion banknotes appeared.

In 2003, the currency system of the Zimbabwe dollar had completely collapsed. In 2009, Zimbabwe announced that it would stop using its own currency and switch to euros and US dollars for settlement, which stabilized the currency.

After 2009, Zimbabwe's economy began to show a growth trend by actively relying on foreign aid - because it couldn't fall any further, but it would be up if it was pulled. With external financial and technical support, Zimbabwe's agriculture has gradually emerged from the situation where the country was about to fail.

At the same time, Zimbabwe is actively developing tourism and has also gained some business opportunities. But today, Zimbabwe is still one of the extremely poor and least developed countries in the world, with the average life expectancy of its people being only 40 years old.

In 2017, the Zimbabwean military launched a coup and placed veteran President Mugabe under house arrest after 37 years in power. Force him to resign. After all, this Mugabe is really outrageous. He is 95 years old, but he is not willing to delegate power at all. However, the military believed that he was also the leader who led Zimbabwe's black independence back then, and could barely be regarded as a national hero. It did not investigate his incompetent rule and corruption for so many years, and still supported his retirement life with extremely generous courtesy. In 2019, Mugabe passed away. In the same year, Zimbabwe began to try again to issue its own currency, but still suffered extremely severe currency devaluation.

Zimbabwe was originally a country with a pretty good foundation, but in the end it was forced to implement an economic development path that was not suitable for it. Moreover, years of colonial rule by Europe and the United States have made it almost impossible to ease the ethnic conflicts between blacks and whites in the country. Various factors interacted with each other, leading to the collapse of the country. But the situation in Zimbabwe is not unique. Such tragedies have actually been staged in countless African countries. Related Q&A: What is the exchange rate of Zimbabwe Dollar? How many Zimbabwe dollars is 100WRMB equal to?

The currency of Zimbabwe is a non-free currency in China. It has no price, cannot be exchanged, and cannot be used. However, by calculating with the currencies of other countries, the exchange rate of the RMB and the Zimbabwe dollar can be obtained. According to the official exchange rate: 10 trillion ZD is worth 2 cents, 20 trillion ZD is worth 4 cents, 50 trillion ZD is worth 20 cents, and the banknote “King of Kings” is worth 100 trillion ZD is worth 40 cents. , equivalent to the price of two buns in the supermarket. Moreover, the country of Zimbabwe will declare the Chinese yuan and U.S. dollar as legal tender without the need for exchange.