The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has made a strong call to the ANC government to take immediate steps to repair its relationship with the United States in the wake of its decision to hold military exercises with the Chinese and Russian navies. (See news report posted yesterday).
Despite the official policy of the South African government being one of neutrality in the growing international stand-off between the authoritarian Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the one hand, and “Western” liberal democracies on the other, the ANC government has shifted towards a more openly anti-Western posture, which now threatens South Africa’s relations with the US, says Nicholas Lorimer,
IRR analyst.
Despite some initial criticism of Russia at the start of the invasion, the government has since ventured little in the way of criticism of Russia or of China’s human rights record, he adds.
“This behaviour has not gone unnoticed in the US, where a group of members of the House of Representatives has drawn up Resolution 145 calling on the Biden administration to immediately review its bilateral relations with South Africa, including South Africa’s inclusion in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) and the 2012 US-SA Trade and Investment Framework that have proved beneficial to South Africa’s economy.”
Lorimer points out that the US and its allies in Europe and the United Kingdom are South Africa’s largest trading partners, jointly surpassing the trade with SA’s largest individual trade partner, China, in both imports and exports.
“The SA government’s violation of its own stated neutrality not only threatens the country’s economic prospects, but runs counter to the values enshrined in the Constitution and the country’s interest. SA’s important economic ties do not need to be blind to the very important differences between our commitments to individual rights and the authoritarian values of the Chinese state. These are not differences limited to the elite of our country. As research by the Social Research Foundation has found, South Africans would much rather live in the United Kingdom and United States than in Cuba or Russia,” he adds.
“The ANC government has prioritised its own pet ideological projects at the expense of ordinary South Africans, who have little desire to be drawn into a major geopolitical conflict and have much to lose if the government sides with authoritarian regimes.
“South Africa should immediately cease antagonising the US and its major trading partners in Europe. It should return to its stated policy of neutrality, lest the country finds itself involved in a global power struggle it is not equipped to handle and has nothing to gain from.”
