South Africa's foreign economic strategies in a changing global system


Shifts in South Africa's foreign policy

Foreign policy gravitated away from cajoling Western countries towards strengthening ties with new friends in Asia and Latin America. There had been an attempt in 2000 by the South African government to orient South Africa's global economic strategy towards diversifying trade and economic relations away from traditional partners in the US and the EU and towards the rest of Africa, Asia and Latin America.19 This was termed the „Butterfly Strategy‟ but, as is often the case with grand government strategies, there was never a serious attempt at building capacities for execution. For example, the Department of Trade and Industry does not have fully fledged units that are sufficiently staffed to pursue commercial diplomacy in these new priority economies, that is, Brazil, Russia, India, and China and a host of other emerging economies. It also lacks a dedicated research capacity to inform South Africa's strategies on engaging with the new economic players.
 

Under President Zuma's administration, foreign policy tilted acutely towards countries such as China and Russia.20 These countries would be given more attention at a bilateral level, especially in diplomatic and commercial relations. Indeed, under Zuma's administration, Russia has become the new darling of South Africa's foreign policy; Zuma has visited Russia more than any other country abroad since he became president in 2009. Accordingly, the ANC has cemented party-to-party relations with both Vladimir Putin's United Russia, despite its right-leaning credentials, and the Communist Party of China, as a signal of where greater priority in diplomatic relations is gravitating. 

The incandescent ideas that had informed Mbeki's presidency have dimmed under Zuma, with the centre of gravity of foreign-policy thinking shifting to the ANC party headquarters in Luthuli House, which has set out hostile outlines of foreign policy towards the West. In assessing foreign policy under Zuma, Le Pere contends that, „The Zuma era has thus been adaptive and continuous in terms of the normative charters which guided his predecessors, with the centre of gravity less concentrated in the Presidency than was the case during the Mbeki years‟.22 As a result, politics and sentiment rather than technocratic rationale are increasingly apparent factors in policymaking. 

As an example, the ANC's foreign policy discussion document on international relations made some strong remarks against the West. It lamented the dominance of smaller countries by the West. In this document, the ANC argued for „exclusive multilateralism‟ pursued through the BRICS and other similarly structured club arrangements, with like-minded countries.23 The South African government views the BRICS forum – and indeed was attracted to it – as a forum that could potentially assume a counter-hegemonic character vis-à-vis the West.
 

In its policy document the ANC castigates the G20 as a „Western tool‟, and an extension of the G8 (G7); it is deemed as „not yet [a] platform for fresh new thinking on global economic governance, nor should any approach be expected out of it in the absence of proactive strategic interventions by progressives‟.
 

The contention here is that the tilt in South Africa's foreign policy away from the West has not been grounded in any strategic thinking, in particular with regard to South Africa's development interests.
 

The drift in South Africa's foreign policy, especially the lack of coherence with domestic economic imperatives, has also been observed by the National Planning Commission (NPC), which offered the most strident critique; when it released its National Development Plan in 2012, the NPC dedicated a full chapter (7) on weaknesses in foreign policy.25 First, it called for foreign relations to be driven by the country's domestic economic, political and social demands, in order to work toward achieving South Africa's goals of eradicating poverty, lowering inequality and creating jobs. Second, it asserted that South Africa should aggressively expand trade and investment in the region, on the continent and
globally. This would require better coordination across the different agencies dealing with economic issues, enhanced interaction with industry and improved technical capacity within the foreign ministry to drive economic diplomacy – all of which are currently lacking. 

The NPC decries what it sees as South Africa's „relative decline in power and influence in world affairs‟, further noting that „South Africa [has] lost a great deal of the moral authority – as a power source – that the country enjoyed in the period immediately after the 1994 elections‟. The NPC went on to state that South Africa's foreign relations are becoming ineffective, with the country experiencing a drop in global competitiveness and moral standing. According to the NPC‟s assessment, even on the African continent, South Africa's standing has declined, with the country having a weak grasp of Africa's geopolitical situation, and with „policy makers vacillating between leading and muddling through on issues of integration and cooperation‟.


It is clear that the importance of domestic economic priorities underpinning foreign policy has now become more urgent than ever as the country is facing multiple economic challenges, including sustained low growth rates, stagnant and high unemployment rates, and numerous industries facing increased competition from abroad. In this context, discussion turns to South Africa and the WTO, G20 and the BRICS, and the role of South Africa in global financial governance reform. 

Source:

 University of Pretoria

South African Institute of International Affairs, Johannesburg, South Africa


South Africa's foreign economic strategies in a changing global system 

Mzukisi Qoboa & Memory Dube

 

Mozambique Doing Business - South  Africa

2025

Link : https://repository.up.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/12499713-a619-4296-993e-8612843af4b7/content

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