JORICH LOUBSER: SA foreign policy more than a simple rejection of the West

Since 1994 the ANC has dominated SA politics at most levels of government, and many policies mirror its inner world. However, while the exact form and timing is unknown, coalition politics seem set to become the norm in SA, with opinion polls indicating that the ANC may need to form a coalition at national level to govern after the May 29 elections.

Should this happen, opposition parties’ policy frameworks may increasingly affect SA’s actual policies. This could be through an ANC-led coalition, the DA-led “moonshot pact” (multiparty charter), or other possible configurations. The politics of smaller parties, therefore, demands closer attention.

Pieter Scribante and Solly Moeng’s recent criticism of the ANC’s international policy illustrates that ActionSA’s thinking on key issues needs to develop further (“Archaic Soviet-era ideology shapes our politics and international relations”, April 18).

The authors, “ActionSA’s experts on economic development and international relations”, have presented a relatively shallow criticism of the ANC, and future work will hopefully improve.

They argue in their article that the “ANC government is prioritising its relationship with Russia over other countries, to the detriment of the whole of SA”, the most disastrous possible outcome of this being SA’s removal from the US’s African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa).

Outdated

They are correct to argue that removal from Agoa and a general decline in absolute trade with the US would have “an extremely damaging effect on jobs, the economy and our standing as a leading African economy”. However, their framing of the global political economy as characterised by an East vs West battle is outdated. Thus, their implicit call that SA should reorientate itself towards the West is underpinned by economic inconsistencies and moral ambiguities, and their appraisal of the ANC’s foreign policy record is oversimplified. Their proposal for the form of SA’s future integration into the global political economy does not serve the best interests of the country.

While one can identify a Western bloc led by the US, it is difficult to argue that an Eastern bloc, led by China and Russia, exists in the same manner. Many large economies now exist outside of the West. In economic terms, China and India remain the largest — significantly larger than Russia — and are likely to continue to grow at higher rates than most Western economies. Large economies such as Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia are also becoming increasingly powerful global actors and trading partners. However, this non-Western group is by no means as politically coherent as the West — their interests diverge significantly on a range of issues from trade governance to various geopolitical conflicts.

Similarly, China, the leading group in this space, has not been as active as the US in shaping an Eastern bloc. For example, India and China are clearly not as closely aligned as the US and UK on several issues. This can be seen in institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, where on many policies such as trade subsidies countries outside of the West disagree substantially. Some may be surprised to know that India and China still have regular non-lethal skirmishes on their shared border.

Multipolar political order

Ironically, by incorrectly presenting the global political economy as suffering from the bipolar conflict of East vs West, where Russia has a dominant role, it is Scribante and Moeng who hark back to the Cold War era, reproducing the “archaic, Soviet-era” politics they accuse the ANC of. The global political economy is better described as multipolar, where China and the US dominate but power, and in particular trade, is fracturing across a number of lines, as are global institutions.

Even if one accepts the incorrect framing of East vs West, there are economic inconsistencies and moral challenges in their argument. Scribante and Moeng argue that SA’s foreign policy should more closely align with its “friends” in the West, in part due to the West’s trade dominance. Many may feel that blindly supporting another country’s foreign policy because they are a large trading partner is morally dubious regardless of who that partner may be. In a striking resemblance to their argument, some have argued that SA’s public criticism of Israel, and in particular its case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), again acts against the country’s economic interests. Scribante and Moeng do not address this, but the argument they present of Russia is similar to that made by others on Israel.

US harm to SA

Post-apartheid SA has in fact been able to balance competing moral and economic issues. For example, former president Thabo Mbeki did not support the US invasion of Iraq, despite the clear US global dominance at the time. One does not need to sacrifice policy sovereignty every time a threat is made. Presenting the West as our “friends” overlooks the many ways in which US-driven policies harm SA’s economy. These range from its overly zealous protection of medical intellectual property such as with Covid vaccines, to trade governance such as US chicken dumping. SA, like many other developing countries, is constrained by the US’s global system of trade governance.

For many countries the share of trade outside the West is rising, and SA is no different. That trade with China and India has for much of the last decade been greater than trade with the US and UK is for some reason not accounted for in Scribante and Moeng’s argument. Following their logic of aligning with those you trade most with, SA should be pivoting towards China, the nation they present as the leader of the East. Clearly, policymakers must balance several changing circumstances and within this context the ANC’s position and actions are more complex than presented.

The ANC has many policy mistakes to answer for. However, by misdiagnosing the nature of the international political economy Scribante and Moeng provide a simplistic critique of the governing party. While the ANC’s initial response to Russia’s illegal and morally abhorrent invasion of Ukraine could have been stronger, in the long run its attempts to mediate a ceasefire should be applauded — a role it would not have been able to play if it was in the pocket of the US.

SA’s foreign policy apparatus has recently conducted itself remarkably well on the global stage, probably best exhibited by international relations & co-operation minister Naledi Pandor. In geopolitical terms SA’s conflict with the US since 1994 has often been to uphold the principles of the US “rules-based” system, not challenge them, as is illustrated by its opposition to the invasion of Iraq and SA’s use of the ICJ, consistently pointing to international law and norms. The ANC’s foreign policy stance is not one that develops solely out of “archaic, Soviet-era ideologies”, but instead as a response to the changing global political economy.

Governance in SA must adjust to a changing world. While nobody can predict the future with certainty, I would be shocked if the best set of policies mirrors US interests. This account by no means serves as a full defence of the ANC, but it does publicly call on parties such as ActionSA to lift the standard of public debate if they are to have a positive  influence on SA politics. As a party whose origins in part lie with the failure of the DA to act as an effective opposition party, it should not reproduce the DA’s shortcomings. ActionSA can learn a lot from the ANC’s failings, but also from its successes.

• Loubser is an SA PhD candidate at the London School of Economics & Political Science.