South Africa Must Refuse to Cede its Foreign Policy to Others

https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/solly-moeng-sa-must-refuse-to-cede-its-foreign-policy-to-others-20241103

Many people might have forgotten how much pressure was placed on democratic South Africa's founding president, Nelson Mandela, especially by the US and China, on specific foreign policy positions. Each time this happened, Mandela stood his ground and told even the mightiest foreign powers to back off. This is leadership with a backbone.

The Clinton administration was famously unhappy with Mandela’s hosting of leaders such as Fidel Castro of Cuba, Yasser Arafat of Palestine and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, not only at his historic 1994 inauguration but also later during his tenure on their state and official visits to South Africa. In equal measure, the Chinese government was also famously unhappy when, under Mandela’s leadership, South Africa hosted the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Faced with objections and criticisms of foreign powers, Mandela stood firm and told both the Americans and the Chinese that, while he appreciated their friendship, it was not up to them to determine South Africa’s friendships.

He firmly sent them packing, telling these countries to “go jump” if they thought they could dictate South Africa’s foreign policy. And he did this while reminding these countries that he regarded them too as friends of South Africa, but not in an exclusive manner. In those early years of our democracy, South Africa took a principled stance that it would not be bullied by global powers and it would remain loyal to those who had stood firmly with it during its darkest period. It would also approach its international relations from the human rights perspective.

Since fleeing his native Tibet in 1959, the Dalai Lama has been living in Dharamsala, India – a founding member, with South Africa, of the Brics group of nations. India’s decision to provide a haven to the Dalai Lama has neither led China to stop doing business with its neighbour, nor to object to its Brics membership. Trade between China and India is thriving. It is therefore safe to conclude that India stood firm on its decision to give a home to the exiled Dalai Lama without letting this stand in the way of cordial trade and other relations with China.

In the same Mandela spirit, in 1997, South Africa agreed to recognise the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China. Mandela did this, allowing Taiwan as a self-governing entity the right to have non-diplomatic representation in South Africa, a model that is also used by several other countries. South Africa extended this to Taiwan to maintain important economic and cultural ties. This, notwithstanding the fact that Taiwan, under its former military regime, historically maintained trade and diplomatic relations with apartheid South Africa, despite its horrendous racist policies.

Mandela’s astute leadership and positioning of South Africa ensured that, while we recognised the complexities of the global arena in which we operated, our country’s foreign policy would be determined by South Africa alone. This policy would be underpinned by human rights considerations, a spirit of global cooperation, sovereign independence and the ever-growing drive to advance South Africa’s interests in the often-treacherous global arena, in which decisions are not driven by whom we hate or whom we love, or even by mere political ideology.

It is as complex as it seems, no doubt, but it is a posture that under Mandela did not stop South Africa from articulating its position on many burning global issues. These included the need to call out the hypocrisy of the world’s superpowers whenever this was warranted.

Those who lead South Africa in the post-ANC dominated political era must be smart in repositioning our country in this ever more fragmented, multipolar global arena. They should do so without allowing the country to be used as a disposable pawn by any global power in proxy wars against its adversaries or to defend international lawbreakers it favours. Instead, South Africa can be positioned as an astute kingmaker in the global arena.

Kingmakers are not dictated to, blackmailed, or ordered around at the beck and call of third party states who only want to satisfy their selfish and divisive interests at the cost of others.

South Africa must return to the founding values of our Constitution. We should be mindful of the potential that can still be strengthened and used as a moral yardstick in Africa and elsewhere in the world against any power, irrespective of its identity, that abuses its position to threaten regional or global peace. South Africa must remain in Brics, but it must also retain and strengthen its relations with its traditional trading partners, whose investments remain important for economic development.

In every instance, South Africa’s core values of defending human rights and democracy must prevail and not be undermined or silenced by trade interests. We could lead and call upon others to follow in integrating the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals and cooperating in the reduction of inequalities of all kinds, wherever they persist, and build a better shared world. We have a voice and presence. Let us use these effectively for a better Africa and world.

For this, we need the kind of powerful and unafraid leadership that is emotionally mature, empathetic, balanced, visionary, and can not only imagine a far better world than the one we currently live in, but take an active part in building towards its realisation.

Moeng is the director of stakeholder relations in ActionSA president Herman Mashaba’s office.