A buoyant President Cyril Ramaphosa has bid farewell to the People’s Republic of China after a two-legged tour of Beijing which he described as the “most successful”.
IOL reported last week that Ramaphosa had invited several Cabinet high-ranking officials including Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen to accompany him on the state visit to China, and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit held in the Chinese capital.
Steenhuisen is leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) which was co-opted into the government of national unity (GNU) formed after the May 29 general elections, after Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) suffered heavy blows, including losing its historical majority.
The ANC and the DA hold contrasting views on many salient foreign policy direction matters of the South African government, and with the China tour, Ramaphosa said South Africa took the opportunity to communicate to Chinese President Xi Jinping that there is no form of “dilution” of Pretoria’s ever-increasing proximity to Beijing.
“We told him (Xi) that South Africa will continue to adhere to the policy that we have held for over 30 years, of recognising the one-China policy. We assured him that the coming in of the other nine parties in the government of national unity would not dilute or erase our policy positions,” said Ramaphosa.
“In fact, last night I had the opportunity to inform him (Xi) that even one of the leaders of the parties that we are now joined with in the government of national unity, who initially was not so well disposed to one-China policy, after having visited China for the very first time, and for the very first time as one of my ministers, publicly said he now subscribes and embraces one-China policy,” he said.
“President Xi Jinping was rather pleased with that and said this confirms the good decisions that we took, to take South Africa into a new era, an era of cooperative governance, working together with other political parties where we would jointly advance the interests of South Africa.”
Ramaphosa said during his engagement with the Chinese leadership, the political developments within South Africa had been fully explicated to the Chinese counterparts.
Asked to identify the Cabinet minister, Ramaphosa said: “As I said, I came with a whole delegation of ministers and we made it a point that the delegation must be representative of the government of national unity in some shape or form.
“We were very fortunate to have ministers, some of whom were coming to China for the very first time, and in the past they may well have had their own illusions and concepts about China and when they got here they saw for themselves,” he said.
“Their minds were blown and they said we didn’t know that this country (China) is as capable as this. For many, that is when the penny dropped, as they say. They then opened their eyes as you (journalist) said. Minister of International Relations (Ronald Lamola) is the one who alerted me to the interview that one of the ministers had made on Bloomberg TV. I had not been aware of it,” said Ramaphosa in laughter.
He said this proves the “correctness” of having taken the decision to form the government of national unity which seeks to stabilise the country after the May 29 elections.
Ramaphosa was this week on a State Visit to China, before he attended the successful Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit which drew around 50 African heads of State to Beijing.
Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in the opening ceremony of FOCAC pledged over R900 billion in investment and assistance packages to the African continent over the next three years.
Ramaphosa said his trip was “most successful”.
“We have just concluded the most successful visit to China which had two parts. The first was the State Visit where we were hosted by President Xi Jinping and the second was attending the FOCAC summit. This was my second State Visit to China and of course we had a number of objectives that we wanted to achieve in terms of the outcomes,” he said.
“For us the first one is to enhance the relationship between China and South Africa, particularly in relation to the strategic partnership we have. We were able together to upgrade our relationship from being a comprehensive strategic partnership to an all-round cooperative strategic partnership in the new era. The new era means the new period that we are all operating in, of the global situation and the developments we want to foster between our two countries,” said Ramaphosa.
“We were also able to share perspectives with President Xi Jinping on the seventh administration that we were just elected into. We briefed him on the setting up of the Government of National Unity and how it is structured. Also in the course of our discussions, we (managed to) waylay the concerns that they may have had about South Africa’s foreign policy towards China.”
Ramaphosa said he has assured Xi, who leads one of the most strategic partners of South Africa, that Pretoria will continue to adhere to the “One-China Policy” which recognises Taiwan and other regions as inalienable territories of China.
On trade, Ramaphosa was excited after several deals were clinched between South Africa and China during his tour.
“Our other objective in terms of outcomes is as to work on our economic challenges. We briefed him (Xi) about the priorities of the Government of National Unity, that we want the united government now to focus on economic development particularly to tackle the challenge of unemployment and have an all-inclusive growth economic trajectory.
“We also briefed him on our other priorities such as ensuring that we build more capacity in the State and that we have local governments that are more effective and efficient to serve the interests of South Africans,” he said.
On Thursday, IOL reported that in a historic move, the Chinese president had announced an unprecedented financial support packages, valued at US$50.7 billion (over R900 billion), in different forms for the African continent when he met the heads of State in Beijing.
More than 50 African leaders, joined by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres attended this week's China-Africa forum.
Xi told the auspicious opening ceremony of the Forum, at the Great Hall of the People, that in the next three years, China will work with Africa to take the ten partnership actions for modernisation to deepen China-Africa cooperation and spearhead the Global South modernisation.
China and Africa account for one-third of the world population, and Xi said without China-Africa modernisation, there will be no global modernisation at all.
IOL