After a few days of continuous debates, China’s officials decided to return home the ship carrying thousands of weapons to Zimbabwe.

"The (shipping) company took this decision. The shipment will be returning," ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, according to the Associated Press. Just two days ago she issued a statement saying that the weapons were ordered last year, completely unrelated to recent developments and that the shipment represents a “perfectly normal trade in military goods between China and Zimbabwe.”

The United States and also the UK urged China to recall the shipment, as Zimbabwe’s opposition made a firm request to the country’s neighbors, and not only to get involved and help.  The shipment was believed to have been requested by President Mugabe in order to ensure his position as the ruler of the country, in any given scenario of the vote recount. As the authorities wait for the complete vote recount, rumors about the extreme violence on the opposition’s supporters keep appearing and the weapons could have made things much worse.

The decision is considered a victory by the dockworkers, religious leaders, trade unionists, western diplomats, human rights workers and some government officials who have been intensely campaigning against the shipment since last week.

The retreat was also related to the new possible wave of human rights protests that might have surfaced in addition to the ones concerning Tibet. This sort of aggravation is not something that China needed with just a few months before the Olympic Games kick-off.