Commenting on the war in Ukraine some months ago, US President Joe Biden said it was a battle between democracy and autocracy. The ongoing war is certainly a battle between the West and Russia, but it is not one between democracy and autocracy. Many non-Western democracies in Africa and in Asia, led by SA and India, have consciously chosen not to take sides.
As Biden reneges on his election campaign promise to make Saudi Arabia a pariah over its human rights abuses by visiting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, we can see again that the US also needs to keep powerful autocracies on side. The US needs Saudi Arabia geopolitically in the Middle East lest Russia, China and Iran become too influential in the region. It also needs Saudi oil at a time when high oil prices are driving a global recession and high petrol prices at home are hurting his re-election prospects.
Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia has demonstrated that when push comes to shove, pragmatism takes precedence over human rights in politics. Many commentators have pointed out this hypocrisy. My contribution is that I don’t think Biden made the wrong choice. It was a hard choice to make between values and economic interests. Biden chose to be mocked for his hypocrisy, but he put the US national and economic interest first. Clearly, it is in the US’s interest that Saudi Arabia remains an ally.
I am aware how controversial it is to say that trade and national interest should come before human rights, especially given SA’s hard-won democracy and history of disregard for human rights. But the SA government needs to make hard choices too. What is actually in SA’s national interest? Its foreign policy should aim to attract foreign investment, foster international trade and grow the economy to alleviate the unemployment crisis in particular.
At the global level, a non-Western and non-democratic China is on track to become the world’s largest economy. The East will eventually become the world’s economic centre. However, China is emerging in a global order that was crafted by the US and its allies. The geopolitical games and brinkmanship between Russia and the West, and the argy-bargy in the Middle East, are a result of this shift in the global order.
India, SA’s other partner in the Brics (Brazil Russia, India, China and SA) bloc, has played the game with far more skill than SA. It remains an indispensable Brics partner and leader of the developing South. Yet it has pushed back against the Russia agenda to turn Brics into an anti-West alliance, and resisted calls for Brics expansion. At the same time, it has joined the Quad alliance with Australia, Japan and the US to check Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific. India has not entered the fray between the West and Russia on either side. Its reward has been enjoying cheaper Russian oil while still maintaining good trade relations with Europe, the US and China.
As ANC party factional battles play out and dirty laundry is aired, we know the factions are waging their campaigns not for the national interest, but in the hope they will be rewarded with government positions or tenders when the dust settles. Like the other liberation movement-turned-governing-party north of our borders, the ANC is on a path of decay and decline.
If the ANC administration can’t even keep the lights on, what hope is there that it can make hard policy choices or pursue effective foreign policy that maximises SA’s national interest? The least bad option for SA under the circumstances would be for the country to simply focus on what it is good at — managing relations within the Southern African Development Community and abstaining from global issues.
• Dr Kuo, a former lecturer at the Shanghai International Studies University in China, is adjunct senior lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.
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