What does Xi’s visit mean for South Africa?
Aidan Springs
On Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced he would attend the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The summit begins on Tuesday. This marks yet another move by Beijing towards strengthening its relations with Africa.
Xi’s visit comes at an unstable time in South Africa. The country has been struck by a series of political and economic crises. Notably, the South African parliament voted last month to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from visiting the country for the summit, in accordance with the International Criminal Court’s ruling against him. South African politicians were deeply divided on this decision, with EFF leader Julius Malema, along with many ANC politicians, siding with the Russian President.
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Pro-Russian views have been continuing to rise across Africa. They have joined alongside a series of pro-Russian coups which have struck the Sahel over the past few months. Malema’s party is not alone in its unabashedly pro-Moscow rhetoric. Many African nations, disillusioned with the West and citing Europe’s colonial history on the continent, have sought alternative trade and aid partners around the globe.
That’s where Xi steps in.
BRICS is a semi-official international organization that groups together the major global economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. These are all countries that have some economic or political incentives to compete with more dominant Western economies. Through its massive Belt and Road initiative, China has won the hearts and minds of many on the continent, framing itself as the anti-western, anti-colonial alternative to the United States and European Union.
Still, Xi’s visit to South Africa comes amid a significant economic downturn. Massive riots have sent the country into a downward spiral, furthering the already deeply divided political fissures developing in Pretoria. While Ramaphosa’s African National Congress still maintains a monopoly on governance in South Africa, the country’s poor state has led to the rise of both the pro-western Democratic Alliance and the aforementioned EFF, or Economic Freedom Fighters.
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South Africa has, since the end of Apartheid, been one of the more receptive nations to non-western investment, and yet, the country is objectively much worse off now than it was when it joined BRICS back in 2010. Thus, one question remains; just how beneficial have Xi and Putin been for Africa?
It seems, to me at least, not very beneficial at all.