President of Botswana Duma Gideon Boko highly commented on China's development record and the Communist Party of China (CPC)'s governance experience on Thursday during his recent state visit to China, saying they offer lessons Botswana can emulate in its own modernization drive.
At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Boko began his six-day state visit to China on Monday -- his first since taking office in November 2024.
Boko started the trip in Ningde City, east China's Fujian Province, where he visited an exhibition on the country's poverty alleviation campaign, leaving deeply impressed by its success in lifting hundreds of millions out of abject poverty in the past 40-plus years. In Beijing, he toured the Museum of the Communist Party of China, gaining a deeper understanding of the party's century-long struggle and nearly eight decades of governance experience.
From Fujian to Beijing, Boko updated his social media almost daily, sharing his observations and impressions about China with the rest of the world.
In an interview with China Media Group (CMG) in Beijing on Thursday, Boko hailed the transformation of Fujian from an underdeveloped province into an industrialized and affluent region in a relatively short period of time. He credited the progress in part to the Chinese president, saying his more than 17 years of work in the region "left behind a trail of tangible achievements."
"Fujian was undeveloped. To see a province like that raise itself from levels of poverty that characterized it at the time to where it is now, in the period of time that it has taken, is a remarkable feat indeed. And to also appreciate that President Xi Jinping played a critical role in pushing and championing the development of the area in the 17 and a half years that he worked there. He left behind a trail of tangible achievements: improvements in the lives and livelihoods of people, the upliftment of a whole region from poverty to the levels of affluence and industrialization that it is at now -- that is truly remarkable. Botswana's development trajectory must now take it from where it is now to the highest levels of income, and China offers the most practical, the most immediate lessons in those regards and that is why it was important for me to start in Fujian," he said.
Asked what lessons China offers for development and modernization, Boko pointed to industrialization, harnessing domestic capabilities, and self-belief.
"The critical one is to industrialize, to harness domestic capabilities, to have self-belief. And the self-belief of the Chinese comes from the great tradition, their culture, and they are very strong on it. And so, they don't look outwards for solutions. They look inwards, they lift themselves up, they work together, and they've worked together through history. Botswana is in awe and wants to emulate China," he said.
Reflecting on his visit to the CPC museum in Beijing, Boko described the Chinese ruling party's history as a valuable source of lessons for Botswana and other developing countries.
"And in the Communist Party, we have a ruling party that has a history of over one hundred and five years now and that has been in government for 77 of those years, that before it took over it had been involved in a long-drawn struggle for power in China, and having assumed power over the years, has developed China into a first-class world economy. So, a party like that has a lot to share. That history is important, and it is instructive," he said.
Botswana's president lauds China's development, CPC's governance as model for modernization
