BRICS, club diplomacy and South Africa’s geopolitical repositioning

Abstract

This study sets out to explore whether South Africa’s membership of the BRICS forum serves the country’s national interests. More particularly this examination is approached from the perspective of the motivations given by South African policymakers for joining the forum. In this regard, the indications are that the South African Government views the implications of its membership of the forum quite differently from the foreign policy approaches indicated by Brazil and India, the two other democracies belonging to the forum. What comes to light in examining the decision to adhere to BRICS is that although South Africa views this as part and parcel of its commitment to multilateral diplomacy in a multipolar world, it also sees BRICS as a counterweight to the developed Western powers and therefore as a useful mechanism for undermining the existing Western liberal international order. South Africa’s apparent enthusiasm for undermining the liberal order is not shared to the same extent by Brazil and certainly not by India. Indeed, the evidence suggests instead that India regards BRICS as a “counterpoise” and “partner” to the existing Western multilateral processes. On the other hand, when in 2009 Russia convened the first BRIC heads of states summit at Yekaterinburg, Moscow was experiencing a period of increasing isolation from the West. It was therefore in Moscow’s interest to signal that there was an alternative to a West-dominated global order. This need became even more important for Russia in 2015 after the start of the Ukraine and Crimean crises. An important narrative coming out of the BRICS Ufa Summit in 2015 was that Eurasia is a new centre of economic and political gravity, where Russia and China can peacefully cooperate without United States interference. Similarly, in recent years China has been changing its low-profile image to one of a more assertive power, manifesting policies that vary from being status quo orientated to anti-status quo – in other words acting as a revisionist power though perhaps not to the same extent as Russia – and pushing against the West. Yet, China’s newfound assertiveness has been particularly manifest in the Asia-Pacific region to the extent that the outbreak of great power armed conflict in that region, whether accidental or otherwise, cannot be excluded. In addition, China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project, is also likely to be one of Beijing’s principal foreign policy focus areas for the next five to ten years and this is another manifestation of the country’s newfound assertiveness carrying as it does significant geopolitical implications for the future. Seen against the background of these new geopolitical developments, BRICS has a utility for both Moscow and Beijing as the forum offers both Russia and China a political and diplomatic buffer zone between themselves and the West. Research indicates that India’s approach to BRICS is non-ideological, but nevertheless regards its membership of the forum as imperative in view of China’s presence therein. Relations between India and China, and between these two countries and Russia, have a different character from just normal or routine bilateral relations and tend to take on existential overtones. Accordingly, the relationship between these three countries has been characterised as ambivalent. All this suggests that national interest considerations were as important as notions of multilateralism when the BRICS countries, initially four then five, chose to adhere to the association or forum. Although in BRICS South Africa has committed itself to a variation of alliance politics, the country has consequently also effectively exposed itself to old fashioned power politics, particularly as far as Russia and China are concerned. At the same time, as the study highlights, because South Africa is only a middle power by committing itself wholeheartedly to BRICS, even describing BRICS as the country’s principal platform for relations with the global South, the negative side-effect of BRICS membership has been to limit the country’s foreign policy options and strategic manoeuvrability. BRICS membership has therefore not come cost-free. The study highlights that South Africa’s decision to join BRICS was to a great extent ideologically driven and it is not evident that adequate cost-benefit and evidence-based foreign policy analysis was undertaken prior to accession. As indicated in the study, the BRICS concept of diplomacy is described by some scholars as constituting a new innovation in global governance. Yet, BRICS is located within a variant of multilateral diplomacy known as club diplomacy which has a long lineage going back to the 19th Century. Club diplomacy is essentially state-centric and the very epitome of state-centric club diplomacy would appear to be the BRICS. The state-centric aspects of BRICS help explain why South Africa applied for BRICS membership and why South Africa sees BRICS as a natural fit. However, club diplomacy also has drawbacks as it lacks the rules and protections provided by formal multilateral and inter-governmental organisations to smaller and middle powers, particularly when they choose to associate themselves closely with the diplomacy of great or major powers, and this places South Africa in a dilemma. Seen from the perspective of the classical geopolitical theories of Sir Halford Mackinder’s Heartland and Nicholas Spykman’s Rimland, the study demonstrates that BRICS constitutes the very opposite of the United States’ Cold War era strategy of containment which in recent years has been revived in view of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertive and muscular foreign policy. This aspect potentially raises problems for South Africa in its diplomatic relations with its traditional and historic partners in the developed North but without bringing additional advantages to its diplomatic relations with its partner countries in Africa. It is therefore open to doubt whether BRICS significantly benefits South Africa’s national interests. The study recommends that South Africa sheds its ideological bias and recalibrates its foreign policy by taking into account the complexities of contemporary international politics. This does not necessarily involve leaving BRICS, which could lead to further loss of prestige by the country, but it does require adopting a more independent approach particularly as regards Russia and China. Inescapably tied to this recommendation is that South Africa focuses on how its foreign relations could facilitate its own economic growth and job creation. South Africa’s trade with the BRICS economies is largely with China but this has been at the expense of the de-industrialisation of the South African economy and the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. It is essential that South Africa moves its economy up the value chain and as far as possible escapes the commodities rut for an economy benefits most from the type of advanced intra-industry trade which characterises much of South Africa’s trade with the European Union and the United States. South Africa should, therefore, improve its somewhat frayed relations with its traditional Western partners and desist from looking at the world only through a BRICS-prism. From a diplomatic perspective it would be prudent for South Africa to factor in the possibility that BRICS’ future is uncertain. South Africa should carefully monitor developments in the United States and China closely as they both significantly influence world politics and the global economy. South Africa should also refocus on its African Agenda which for some years now has lost momentum as well as political support both from South Africa and from other African states. For South Africa’s security and economic growth also depend on a stable and economically productive Africa and Southern Africa. Finally, South Africa should strive to restore its domestic governance practices to an acceptable level and to once again advance a rules-based international system which, inter alia, would enable South Africa to resume its role as a bridge-builder which previously earned it much diplomatic prestige.