There is a well-recycled story among SA’s career diplomats about China’s rise. Apparently, during Nelson Mandela’s administration China approached Pretoria to send hundreds of trade diplomats to learn Mandarin, at Beijing’s cost, so that negotiations would be smoother and effortless.
Coming months after the switch of diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to mainland China this offer was ignored, and SA would spend the next decades watching, star-struck, as China rose to superpower status. Year in, year out, meetings would be organised to understand China’s policy towards Africa, and they would be told to read it on the internet.
SA was not alone. Much of the West — the EU, UK and US — Africa and Latin America sat on their hands as China plotted its way from a poor nation to one of the world’s richest, and a significant military and economic powerhouse.
Late in the day, with no strategy, Pretoria would cosy up to Beijing and join Brics (the socioeconomic and political co-operation club including Brazil, Russia, India and China). Much of the exponential, albeit unbalanced, bilateral trade with China has occurred despite Sino-SA relations, not because they were particularly close.
The West woke up in the past decade, and during this period its approach to China has vacillated from welcoming and encouraging its rise to open hostility and resentment, seeking to contain and, lately, thwart its growing influence in much of the developing world.
During Donald Trump’s administration the flip-flop reached its peak. Initially Trump sought to befriend Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. When Covid-19 erupted, Trump praised China’s approach to the virus’s containment strategy and information sharing.
Costly war
But within months he had changed his tune and was blaming America’s deadly mishandling of the pandemic on the “China virus”. Before the 2019 outbreak he was undoing most of his predecessor’s policies and international trade, military and political pacts.
With China, Trump declared a costly trade and currency war, which was only paused during a short-lived truce and the coronavirus pandemic. Though his successor, Joe Biden, has reversed many of Trump’s destructive policies, he has kept the anti-China approach. He is supported in this by the Democrats and Republicans, which have a shared mistrust of and disdain for China. This bipartisan approach was on full display during the recent brutalisation of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew by US representatives in Congress.
From a trade perspective, Biden has kept Trump’s tariffs and imposed new restrictions to prevent China from accessing advanced technologies that could strengthen its military hardware. The obvious fear is these weapons being used on Taiwan, the island state China regards as part of the motherland.
A month ago the US signed the Aukus military co-operation pact with Australia and the UK to contain China’s influence in the Pacific region — a move that has irritated Beijing. Washington was also among the first to dismiss Xi’s 12-point plan to end the war in Ukraine and has done little to encourage Xi to travel to Kyiv to play a mediation role.
After reopening its economy after three years of Covid-19 lockdowns Xi, emboldened by his re-election, has reacted aggressively to the US approach. Not only has he presented the Ukraine plan, he has also travelled to Moscow to strengthen relations with Russia, and has not made the call or requested an audience with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president.
Favour engagement
To add salt to America’s wound Xi is championing moves by Asian countries to reduce reliance on the dollar in intra-Asian trade transactions. Moves are also afoot to use their own currencies in trade with Brazil.
As happened when Trump was president, the West’s approach to China is not uniform. Members of the EU, including France, Spain and Germany, and the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, appear to favour engagement with China instead of confrontation and hostility.
In the past few months various leaders of the bloc have made trips to China to meet Xi. Last week it was the turn of French President Emmanuel Macron to take tea with Xi, accompanied by a high-level business delegation. It is too soon to tell how much was achieved by Macron and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, in encouraging Xi to visit Zelensky and persuade Putin to agree to a ceasefire and genuine peace talks.
Still, the Europeans’ approach appears more sensible and pragmatic for this period of volatility and heightened uncertainty. It is pragmatic because China’s rise is unstoppable. Also unstoppable is a multipolar world order.
What matters now is ensuring that China’s new superpower status is harnessed towards the betterment of all of humanity. The greater responsibility lies with China in proving that its power is a force for good.
A more progressive posture would be forging a partnership of superpowers, instead of fuelling the unhelpful rivalry between China and the West, especially the US, and asking the world’s developing nations to choose one or the other.
As it was with Mandela’s government, China should open itself to the world to promote this enlightened partnership. And the world should reciprocate by keeping an open mind.
• Dludlu, a former Sowetan editor, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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