Government misses an important point in fracas over Taipei trip

Monday night’s media statement by the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco) that "foreign visits" by South African officials must be co-ordinated and seek to advance SA’s foreign policy and national interests is a pertinent reminder of how far the country has fallen under President Jacob Zuma.

In lambasting a trip to Taiwan’s capital Taipei by Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga as being in breach of "our One-China policy", the government is exhibiting the same anti-democratic tendencies as mainland China.

"In a move that is highly regrettable, Mayor Msimanga disregarded Dirco’s advise (sic) and proceeded with the visit," the department said late on Monday.

The one-China policy refers to a policy or viewpoint that there is only one China, despite the existence of two governments that claim to be "China" — in Beijing, and Taipei in Taiwan.

This resulted from China’s civil war after 1949, when nationalist Chinese were expelled from China and fled to the island to escape the communists.

The upshot is that countries that seek diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or mainland China) are told to break off official relations with the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) and vice versa.

What is absurd about Dirco’s statement is that it arrogates “our one-China policy” in respect of all official capacities in SA — even in instances where the ANC is no longer in government.

The department’s take on democracy, particularly in the Zuma era, leaves little doubt that the governing party has lost its way, and is incapable of comprehending the very processes that brought it to power in 1994.

Dirco said Taiwan was not recognised as a sovereign state by SA or the UN. It also said SA maintained a liaison office in Taipei, as did the Taiwanese in Pretoria, but these liaison offices did not have the status of an embassy.

“The liaison office’s arrangement was agreed upon to facilitate people-to-people contact. It has no political mandate and therefore interaction between political office bearers is not allowed,” Dirco said.

The department said section 84 (2) (h) (i) of the Constitution enjoins the president of the Republic with the powers and responsibilities to conduct SA’s foreign relations.

“Dirco implements our country’s foreign relations, in consultation with the presidency and other government departments,” it said.

But the ANC’s notion of political office bearers surely can only refer to jurisdictions in which it is dominant.

The government seems to have missed the point that it no longer controls Tshwane, and that while the city may fall under SA’s notion of three tiers of government — national, provincial and municipal — it is precisely the separation of powers in a democracy that renders Dirco’s further statements as ridiculous:

“Cabinet has in the past decided that representatives of government across all three spheres co-ordinate all their foreign engagements with Dirco so as to ensure synergy and maintain a cohesive approach in dealing with any international entity or government,” Dirco said.

Dirco goes on to state that SA enjoys strong diplomatic and trade relations with mainland China.

"The two countries share membership of, and participate as partners on numerous international bodies, including Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, SA), the BASIC Group on Climate Change (with Brazil, India and China), the Group of 77 plus China and the G20. SA and China are also co-chairs of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation.

Dirco said SA’s bilateral relations with China were facilitated and guided through a range of mechanisms.

These included: the Beijing declaration establishing the comprehensive strategic partnership; the binational commission; the joint interministerial working group on co-operation; the strategic dialogue mechanism; and the five-to 10-year strategic framework on co-operation, signed in 2014 and serving as an overall implementation plan for all existing agreements and frameworks.

But what Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, obviously does not understand, is that despite China being SA’s biggest individual trading partner, and the world’s second-largest economy, the ANC does not have control over Tshwane, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth or Cape Town.

This renders entirely moot Dirco’s notion that "representatives of any sphere of government must ensure that their engagements with international entities are aligned to existing mechanisms and programmes, and that such relations are co-ordinated in a manner that advances SA’s foreign policy and national interests".

The DA has defended Msimanga’s trip‚ stating: "The reality is that their baseless attacks stem from their unwillingness to accept that they have lost control of many municipalities across SA."

The party reminded the ruling party "that neither the ANC nor the national government it runs can dictate who DA mayors meet with in order to obtain job-creating investment‚ and that such international trips are allowed".

The Washington Post recently said that US president-elect Donald Trump’s "protocol-breaking telephone call" with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen was an intentionally provocative move that established the incoming president as breaking with the past.

The communication was the first between leaders of the US and Taiwan since 1979.

In the meanwhile, the ANC and mainland China both need to understand, as Trump will also find out, that monopolisation of political power is not an inalienable right.

Zuma’s statement that the ANC will rule until Jesus returns is as fallacious as the notion that China’s ruling party is still communist — rather than being closer to an outmoded totalitarian kleptocracy.