There are diplomats who arrive announcing themselves. And there are diplomats who arrive already working. H.E. Zhang Lizhong belongs to the second category.
In his typical casual Chinese navy-blue shirt, Zhang carries no unnecessary noise. He keeps no performative distance. He returns calls. He listens carefully. He speaks sparingly. And when he speaks, it is usually to ask a question that unsettles comfort: What is the plan?
Zhang arrived in Uganda at a difficult global moment, as the pandemic waned. The world was anxious. Institutions were tired. Diplomacy everywhere was loud, theatrical, and impatient. Many envoys chose spectacle as strategy. Zhang chose rhythm and impact.
The steady rhythm of systems, plans, and quiet execution. I remember him handing over Covid-19 vaccines donated to Uganda by the Government of China in August 2021, stressing that this was in the spirit of international cooperation and solidarity in fighting the pandemic.
On a personal level, his humility is not performative. It is ideological. It reflects an ethic that treats leadership not as personality, but as a duty to organise reality. I have known Zhang not to flatter. He does not dramatize.
He does not promise what cannot be delivered. He is a man of his word. In Uganda, where exaggeration sometimes passes for ambition, his calm is disruptive. He listens to speeches, nods politely, and then returns to first principles, first. Discipline. Order. Sequence. Victory.
Even in other spheres. I am sure the Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa, who played a few rounds of golf with him, can attest to this. Zhang represents a Chinese diplomatic culture that believes relationships must produce outcomes. Not applause.
Not headlines. Outcomes. He carries South–South cooperation not as a slogan, but as a method. Countries with shared histories of extraction that led to poverty, and delayed industrialisation exchanging skills, infrastructure, and experience, without conditional friendship.
If you have followed him closely, you have seen how he shows up in communities, at dams, and on construction sites. Places where development is not debated, but demanded. He understands that dignity is built in small routines. Electricity that stays on. Food that arrives on time.
Systems that work quietly in the background. That philosophy becomes visible in concrete symbols. Karuma stands. Power flows. Industrial parks breathe during the day and at night. Cold chains survive.
Jobs stop being theoretical, they become real. You can argue ideology endlessly. You cannot argue with light. But perhaps Zhang’s most consequential intervention is not infrastructure. It is minds. In 2023, he sent me to China to study.
Not to tour, but to learn. Through the Dongfang Scholarship, anchored at Peking University, a place where ideas are heavy and discipline is non- negotiable. I was not alone on that path.
Ugandans before me had walked the same corridor of exposure. NRM Secretary General Richard Todwong. The MP-elect for the Elders, soon to be Hon. Ofwono Opondo. Journalists Mubarak Mugabo and Razia Athman, among others.
Different professions. Same classroom. Same recalibration. None returned louder. We all returned sharper. We returned understanding something fundamental about China: that power is built patiently, that humility is not weakness, and that reform and planning is respect for the future.
That is how China invests. Not by exporting noise, but by shaping minds, trusting time, and letting outcomes speak. Zhang also understands something Ugandans often forget. Development without order is chaos in slow motion.
He insists gently but firmly on standards, safety, and organisation. He visits sites. He asks uncomfortable questions. He reminds everyone that growth without discipline is simply another form of violence. Ugandans love big announcements. Strategic partnerships.
Vision statements. Launches. We clap. We post. We trend. Then implementation evaporates. Zhang’s presence quietly mocks this habit. He comes from a system where a five-year plan is not motivational language.
It is a binding agreement with time. And so, the most radical thing he has done during his tenure is consistency. No tantrums. No gossip. No diplomatic theatrics. Before I sign out, there is also a quieter legacy that follows him, carried in colour rather than communiqués.
His wife, Madame Lin Yaqun, an accomplished artist, has raised the bar in painting and spends time teaching Ugandan children to paint, to observe, and to be patient with form. In her space, art stops being privilege and becomes practice, discipline, labour, and confidence learned brushstroke by brushstroke.
As Zhang builds bridges and dams, she builds belief in small hands. As he departs after four years, Zhang leaves behind more than memories. He leaves a method. A philosophy.
A reminder that humility can be an instrument of power, and that South–South cooperation works best when it is practical, disciplined, and human. Zhang has not tried to impress Uganda. He has respected it.
And in doing so, he has taught a simple, deep truth, one our own public service would do well to remember. The future is not promised. It is organised. It is done.
The writer is a member of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC)
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