Chapter V - What Are the Possible Factors Prompting Sub-Saharan African States to
5.1 Ideology, Natural Resource Rics, Pariah States, Countries with International Ambitions,
5.4.2 The Case of South Africa
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strategically, it would be unwise for both Senegal and South Africa to ignore Africa’s largest trading partner as they both aspire to play a leading role in Africa leadership.
Moreover, even whether or not either Senegal or South Africa can be considered the
‘Spokesman of Africa’, without the support of the PRC it would certainly become difficult to build credibility among African states.
The case of South Africa illustrates well this reality. Although since the mid 1970s Pretoria had become one of Taipei’s major allies internationally, the end of the Apartheid and the regime change which have occurred in South Africa in the early 1990s, resulted in a new reorientation in the country’s foreign policy, a fact which had serious consequences for Taipei’s future official interactions with Pretoria. In reality, despite the ROC’s considerable amount of investments and cooperation with South Africa in several areas, such as education, military, economy and agriculture, the opportunities that could arise from a new relationship with the PRC in political and economic terms, were ultimately seen by Pretoria's administration as surpassing the ones offered by Taipei. With new political and economic ambitions, the new government in South Africa realized that the PRC could no longer be ignored, even if relations with its longstanding ally, the ROC, had to be sacrificed.
The next section analyses the political and economic factors which led Pretoria’s administration to alter its of official relationship with the two Chinas.
5.4.2 The Case of South Africa
The first official contacts between South Africa and China took place in 1905 when the first Chinese Consul-General was established in Johannesburg to look after the interests of Chinese laborers in the country (Tseng, 2008). In the early 1930s, South African officials intensified links with the ROC at the same time that the new South African Communist Party (SACP), which during this period had already sided with the Soviet Union, was publicly supporting the communists’ liberation of China (Alden and Wu, 2014).
In the subsequent decades, relations between the ROC and South Africa were not close. With the election of the National Party in 1948, the Afrikaner-led National Party adopted a more systemized and comprehensive racial policy towards non-whites which had also negative implications for the Chinese community established in South Africa. As
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Pretoria's domestic policies were being highly criticized internationally, the ROC sought to minimize its alliance with South Africa, since its priority in this period was to avoid offending the international community and to safeguard its credibility in the UN (Tseng, 2008; Alden and Wu, 2014).
The political catalyst which pushed the ROC and South Africa into a more solid economic and political relationship with each other was that both states faced growing isolation by the international community (Grim, Kim and Anthony, 2014). For the ROC, the two major blows came in 1971, when the UN General Assembly withdrew international recognition of Taipei in favor of Beijing, and in 1979 when Washington decided to formalize relations with Beijing. For Pretoria, it was the growing international condemnation of its Apartheid regime. Yet, one should not ignore that ideological considerations also facilitated cooperation between the ROC and South Africa, since both countries were staunchly anti-communists. Eventually, as both South Africa and the ROC found themselves expelled from the international community, the two states decided to upgrade their ties to ambassadorial level in 1976 (Tseng, 2008; and Grim, Kim and Anthony, 2014).
From the early 1980s onwards, the ROC-South Africa relationship witnessed substantial developments. Economic and trade relations were one of the most crucial aspects of the bilateral relations, but military and nuclear cooperation, high-level exchanges and agreements in several areas such as tourism and agriculture, also played an important role in further strengthening these ties. The strengthened engagement between Taipei and Pretoria provided incentives for entrepreneurs to set up businesses in South Africa which resulted in an exponential increase in investments from the ROC. Two-way trade grew substantially in the next fifteen years, from US$ 30 million in 1979 to US$ 5.8 billion in 1995 (Alden and Wu, 2014). For South Africa, these investments were vital as the country urgently needed foreign investment in the wake of growing economic and political sanctions. In this regard, despite the presence of investors from Israel, Hong Kong, and South Korea, it was the ROC’s investors the ones leading in terms of amount of investment and job creation (Grim, Kim and Anthony, 2014). According to Dullabh (1994), by 1994 the factories owned by investors from the ROC were employing approximately 60 000 workers.
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In 1990, with the freeing of Nelson Mandela from prison, coupled with the unbanning of the liberation movements, the political atmosphere in South Africa was changing and more states desired to establish official ties with Pretoria, including the PRC.
For Tseng (2008), it was obvious that the cordial relations between the ROC and South Africa faced a new era with many challenges. For the South African business community, befriending with Beijing would signify new business opportunities and a new source of investments. Moreover, South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) was also aware of Beijing’s military power, as well as its political influence, as Beijing was one of the five permanent members of the UNSC a position that could no longer be ignored.
However, a decision by the South African government regarding the ‘two Chinas’ issue was far from simple. In fact, while the PRC’s emergence as a global economic and political player was generally acknowledged within the ranks of the Nationalist Party and the African National Congress (ANC), the ROC’s role in South Africa’s domestic affairs could not be disregarded. As a result, in the early 1990s there were two factions within the DFA with different positions regarding the ‘two Chinas’ issue: the first, mainly represented by the directorate for Asia and Australasia, was optimistic about the PRC’s future and understood the importance of being in step with the rest of the international community regarding a permanent member of the Security Council; the second faction, was influenced by academics and other commentators who were reportedly being funded by the ROC administration to promote dual recognition (Botha, 2008). Thus, while during the early 1990s relations with the ROC were maintained, South Africa materialized its wishes of improving relations with the PRC through the establishment of the Chinese Center for South African Studies in Pretoria and the South African Center for Chinese Studies in Beijing. Within this context, Taipei tried its utmost to gain the ANC’s friendship - the soon-to-be ruling party of South Africa (Tseng, 2008).
In 1993 Nelson Mandela paid a visit to the ROC aimed at better understanding the current relations between Taipei and Pretoria as well as to seek financial support for the ANC. In 1994 the ANC won the first democratic elections in South Africa and Nelson Mandela became the new President. President Lee Teng-hui attended President’s Mandela inauguration and got to meet him in the following days where he was assured that the ROC-South Africa relationship was very stable (Tseng, 2008). Moreover, as upon the
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elections the ANC was undergoing financial difficulties, the ROC’s administration decided to approve the provision of US$ 10 million to the ANC (followed by an additional request for US$ 5 million) (Tseng, 2008; Alden and Wu, 2014).
As a result of the elections, former Foreign affairs minister Pik Botha was succeeded by Alfred Nzo, and South Africa’s foreign relations entered a new era. For the new administration, South Africa was no longer an isolated state and it wanted to start playing a more active role in regional, continental and even international affairs (Tseng, 2008). In 1994, South Africa was finally admitted as a full member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU); joined the Commonwealth on that same year; and saw the restoration of its seat in the UN General Assembly becoming reality.
In this new context, between 1994 and 1996 more than two hundred South African of officials had visited the ROC. Taipei, which paid all expenses, hoped to use its economic power to prevent South Africa from downgrading its diplomatic ties with the ROC and recognizing the PRC (Payne and Veney, 2001). In order to attain this goal, the ROC also promised an increase of its investments in South Africa as well as cooperation in several other projects aimed at promoting social and economic development in the country.
However, all of these efforts promoted by the ROC were made at the same time as Beijing was urging Pretoria to cut its diplomatic ties with Taipei and formalize ties with Beijing.
The unwillingness of President Mandela of cutting ties with the ROC and his desire to formalize diplomatic relations with the PRC led to the ‘two Chinas’ dilemma, and became the first substantive foreign policy issue to be faced by the post-apartheid government (Tseng, 2008).
Whereas the ROC’s flexible diplomacy favored dual recognition of the PRC and the ROC by South Africa and other countries, Beijing vehemently opposed this option. As a result, Mandela’s view that Pretoria could enter into diplomatic relations with Beijing but not at the expense of ties with Taipei was unacceptable to the PRC. Thus, in this regard, the new South African administration had to be quick making a decision which should be taken on the basis of national interests and international precedent.
In South Africa it was generally agreed that the maintenance of official relations with the ROC would always hamper further developments in the interactions between Beijing and Pretoria. It should be noted that by the mid 1990s, the PRC’s growing influence
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in the world affairs, coupled with Pretoria’s reformulated foreign policy agenda, and Taipei’s fragile international position, were seriously being taken into account by the new South African government. In this respect, both the ROC and the PRC sought to exert their influence to gain Mandela's acceptance. Furthermore, intense debates were taking place throughout the country regarding the ‘two Chinas’ issue. In one interdepartmental meeting to assess Pretoria’s real long-term interests regarding the ‘two Chinas’, it was concluded that Beijing was a major power and therefore, in South Africa’s long-term economic and political interest, Pretoria should seek to establish official ties with Beijing and downgrade its relations with Taipei (Tseng, 2008). Moreover, the business community, highly interested in doing business with the PRC, sought to further pressure the South African government to solve the ‘two Chinas’ issue in favor of the PRC.
Pretoria’s decision to break its relations with Taipei brought to an end twenty years of a close relationship. The move came after continuous pressure from the PRC to abandon the ROC (Taylor, 2002). For South Africa, it was now the PRC the one able best advance its interests both domestically and internationally, and therefore, siding with Beijing became imperative, even if this decision had to be made at the expense of Taipei.
Political and economic interests were at the base of this decision. Whilst it is undeniable that trade between South Africa and the ROC was important, the PRC’s trade with South Africa (through Hong Kong), was totaling US$2.7 billion by the late 1990s. In fact, Hong Kong’s return to the PRC in 1997 undermined somewhat the ROC competitive advantage vis-à-vis trade with South Africa (Taylor, 2002). Moreover, the consulate of South Africa in Hong Kong has consistently served as an important information center for Hong Kong business community wishing to know about the country or expressing interest in investing in South Africa. With the return to the PRC approaching, the new South African administration became concerned that if it continued to maintain of official diplomatic ties with Taipei, Beijing could oppose the continuation of South Africa’s consular presence in Hong Kong (Taylor, 2002). In addition, South African Airways (SAA) landing rights in Hong Kong could also be put at stake if relations with the ROC were to be maintained (Tseng, 2008).
Furthermore, it was widely known that the new South African administration wanted to improve its international profile and play a more prominent role in international
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affairs, namely to become the ‘spokesman of Africa’. However, such aspirations came into play regarding the PRC–ROC issue when the question of enlarging the UNSC came up. If Pretoria had kept relations with Taipei, it is almost certain that Beijing would have expressed great displeasure at these circumstances and surely vetoed any attempt to promote South Africa to the Council (Taylor, 2002).
Thus, on November 29, 1996, President Nelson Mandela announced that South Africa had decided to officially grant recognition of the PRC at the expense of formal relations with the ROC (Tseng, 2008). Upon this decision, President Mandela released an official statement in which he explains the reasons behind his government's decision to breaking ties with the ROC: “In its international relations, South Africa has become an active participant within the ambit of the OAU and the Non-Aligned Movement, as well as within the UN system. A permanent continuation of diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China on Taiwan is inconsistent with South Africa's role in international affairs”
(Mandela, 1996). In this regard, the South African press made also favorable commentaries on South Africa’s decision. According to Tseng (2008) the Business Day wrote in that same year: “South Africa’s switch is primarily to do with international diplomacy and our government’s desire to become increasingly a world player - for example winning a permanent seat for Africa on the UNSC”.
Naturally, South Africa’s decision to formalize its relations with the PRC was a huge blow for the ROC, which tried its utmost to prevent this move and maintain the ties with its major ally. After a failed attempt to persuade the South African government to reconsider its decision, the ROC decided to immediately suspend its cooperation programs as well as 39 bilateral treaties, and recall its ambassador to Taipei (Tseng, 2008). However, relations between the two countries were not completely severed as both South Africa and the ROC agreed to maintain contacts at an unofficial level through the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town and the Liaison Office of South Africa in Taiwan (Grimm, Kim and Anthony, 2014).
Since the normalization of bilateral relations in 1998, the PRC-South Africa ties have been cemented through the increase of exchanges of high-level visits. In this regard, President Mandela visited the PRC in 1999 and President Jiang Ze-min paid a visit to South Africa in 2000 to attend President Mbeki inauguration. In 2001, President Mbeki paid a
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state visit to the PRC, and in 2007 hosted his Chinese counterpart Hu Jin-tao in his first state visit to South Africa. After being elected in 2009, President Jacob Zuma has paid two state visits to the PRC (2010 and 2014), whereas President Xi-Jin-ping has visited the country in 2013 (South African Government, 2007; SAIIA, 2014; China.Org, 2006).
South Africa’s decision in siding with the PRC at the expense of the the ROC, clearly revealed the latter’s lack of political power and further isolated Taipei in Africa and in the internationally. Upon South Africa’s move, the ROC only had a few African allies left, namely Swaziland, Burkina Faso, Sao Tome and Principe, Malawi and Gambia (Herman, 2011). According to one former Taiwanese diplomat in South Africa, for Pretoria, it became clear that its new foreign policy agenda and vital national interests would hardly be attained if relations with Taipei would be maintained: “(...) no amount of financial aid or grants could really persuade the South African government to maintain its diplomatic ties with the ROC, once South Africa had decided that its vital national interests and new foreign policy focus lay with the PRC” (Lin, 2001).
Indeed, South Africa’s decision in siding with the PRC has proven to be successful in some respects. As it had aspired during the 1990s, South Africa had the chance to occupy the non-permanent seat of the UNSC from 2007-2008 and 2011-2012, which confirmed the Pretoria’s role as Africa’s leader with considerable impact on the continent’s agenda (Grimm, Kim and Anthony, 2014). Moreover, the PRC’s formal invitation to South Africa to become a full member of the BRICs club in 2011 proved that Pretoria's engagement with Beijing has been quite decisive especially regarding a more active participation in international affairs. Lastly, South Africa’s role as a host of the upcoming FOCAC VI, not only reveals the country’s political and economic influence on the continent, but it is also an indication that the current Sino-South Africa relations are important and stable.
In terms of economic relations, South Africa’s decision to side with the PRC has also been fruitful. Indeed, while in 1992 bilateral trade between the two countries was approximately US$ 250 million, since Pretoria announced that it would formalize its relations with Beijing, the trade volume has rapidly increased. By 2011, trade volume had already reached US$ 11 billion. As a result, South Africa became the PRC’s most important trading partner in Africa, and the PRC South Africa’s largest trading partner.
According to Grimm, Kim and Anthony (2014), the PRC’s trade with South Africa makes
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up nearly 20 per cent of the PRC’s total trade with Africa. This is in contrast with bilateral trade between South Africa and the ROC which in that same year had totaled US$ 4.8 billion (Bureau of Foreign Trade, 2011). Thus, Pretoria‘s engagement with Beijing not only made possible for the former to play a more active role in the international arena, but it has also brought about economic gains which could hardly be matched by Taipei, even if official ties had continued, as by the mid 1990s, trade with the ROC was about to reach its peak as a result of the small size of the ROC’s population and economy (Grimm, Kim and Anthony, 2014).
5.4.3 Conclusion
In the 1970s, South Africa became one of the ROC’s main allies. The closer political ties between the two countries were a reflection of both Taipei and Pretoria's diplomatic isolation - Taipei since its ouster from the China seat at the UN in 1971 and the change of the US policy towards the ROC, and Pretoria for its apartheid policies. In this context, the two isolated states decided to upgrade their diplomatic relations to ambassadorial level in 1976. From this period onwards, both states engaged in a close relationship based on economic cooperation, high level bilateral visits and agreements in various fields such as tourism, military, education and agriculture.
However, South Africa’s domestic changes taking place in the early 1990s, namely the end of the Apartheid regime and the subsequent election of President Mandela in 1994, put the South-Africa-ROC relationship under strain. With a reformulated foreign policy agenda and new economic goals, a new decision regarding the ‘two Chinas’ issue would have to be made soon. South Africa’s desire to play a more active role in international affairs and its business community eagerness to do business with the PRC were decisive in this respect. For Pretoria it became clear that these two goals would hardly be achieved if relations with Taipei were maintained. While Beijing would certainly veto any attempt by Pretoria to win a permanent seat for Africa in the UNSC, the South African business
However, South Africa’s domestic changes taking place in the early 1990s, namely the end of the Apartheid regime and the subsequent election of President Mandela in 1994, put the South-Africa-ROC relationship under strain. With a reformulated foreign policy agenda and new economic goals, a new decision regarding the ‘two Chinas’ issue would have to be made soon. South Africa’s desire to play a more active role in international affairs and its business community eagerness to do business with the PRC were decisive in this respect. For Pretoria it became clear that these two goals would hardly be achieved if relations with Taipei were maintained. While Beijing would certainly veto any attempt by Pretoria to win a permanent seat for Africa in the UNSC, the South African business