By Abbey Makoe
“China-South Africa Relations: Upholding the One-China Principle and Its Global Implications” came under focus last Thursday when the Embassy of China in South Africa held a symposium reflecting on the topic. The One-China Principle and the evolving relationship between South Africa and China have far-reaching implications.
Bilateral ties between South Africa and China inevitably affect the entire Southern African region by South Africa’s economic position and the impact of China’s rising stature in geopolitics and also as the world’s second-biggest economy, second only to the US but rapidly catching up.
By both definition and description, the “One-China policy” is universally understood, and acknowledged, as a recognition that Taiwan is an integral part of China.
Throughout the international community, a vast majority of states recognize China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, a self-governing region of China. In diplomatic practice, States that have bilateral relations with Beijing are fully cognizant that they may not extend the same privilege to Taiwan, as Taiwan is not an independent state but a part of China under international law.
When South Africa’s founding father of democracy, Nelson Mandela, established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China on January 1, 1998, the new post-apartheid nation declared its full recognition of the One-China principle and immediately recognized Taiwan as an integral part of China.
President Mandela’s decision has since produced enormous results. China has become the largest trading partner of South Africa. In fact, for the last thirteen years, China has been SA’s biggest trading partner. Last year, the President of China undertook a state visit to South Africa, his fourth in as many years. The blossoming ties between the two close allies reached 25 years last year and were described by the embassy of China in SA as having entered the “golden era”.
The secret behind the close strategic ties is not hard to find: There is a high-level mutual political trust between Pretoria and Beijing. Over the past quarter of a century, the two sides had built effective multiple bilateral mechanisms such as the Bi-National Commission, the High-Level People-to-People Exchange Mechanism, the Joint Economic and Trade Commission and the Strategic Dialogue.
As a self-governing territory, Taiwan does hold elections periodically to elect public office bearers, including the head of the region. However, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out earlier this year, election activities inside the territory of Taiwan cannot change the basic fact that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China.
Eighty years ago in Egypt – China, the US and Great Britain issued the Cairo Declaration that stipulated the return of all the territories Japan had stolen from China, including Taiwan, should be restored to China.
In 1945, Article Eight of the Potsdam Declaration resolved that the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out. Signatories to the Potsdam Declaration included – once again, the US and UK. Russia was also the signatory this time.
In the 1970s, UN Resolution 2758 clarified matters more when it decreed that the People’s Republic of China was the sole representative of the people of China. Since then the international recognition of Taiwan as an independent state has continued to dwindle drastically along with the meteoric rise of the PRC as a dynamic superpower.
Like South Africa, countries that appreciate the truthfulness of history and adhere to the One China Policy stand to benefit from China’s phenomenal foreign policy that is based on the principles of a shared future and win-win cooperation on all fronts.
The impact of China-South Africa relations manifests itself across all spheres of life. That South Africa became the first African country to join the BRICS bloc was partly due to its unwavering ties with Beijing.
Some detractors of China particularly in the West may use Taiwan as a tool to undermine the impactful rise of China in internal affairs. However, the strategy is doomed to fail.
Any attempt to separate Taiwan from China is a recognized red flag, and the vast majority of the member-states of the UN, such as South Africa, are cognizant of this factor and adhere to the One China Policy without being coerced.
