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Is a New World possible, one rooted in genuine respect for the UN Charter and Sustainable Development Goals? And how will South Africa engage this brave and chaotic world order?
by ASHRAF PATEL
THIS has been a big bonanza election year highlighting the chaos and discontents with democracy, with a mix of volatile outcomes. Elections in BRICS nations India and South Africa have eroded the power of incumbent ruling parties and the outcomes in the forthcoming polls in the United Kingdom, France and the United States promise to be equally fascinating.
South Africa’s new multiparty government of national unity (GNU) is now a mixed bag of interests ranging from the mainstream national liberation party to entrenched capitalist-liberal to regional traditionalists.
Let’s unpack the global landscape as the GNU navigates an ever-complex global order.
European elections fortify fortress Europe’s (carbon) borders
The European Union’s June 2024 elections can be described as the national populist Trump-style tide washing ashore. Parties advocating anti-immigration and nationalist models not different from the old National Party of South Africa are coming to power.
The Pact on Migration and Asylum, passed by a slender majority in the European Parliament in April this year, and the EU’s controversial Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) are seen as major barriers to access ‘fortress Europe’, with little prospects for exports for the Global South, especially Africa, thus stifling its own industrialisation prospects.
On the contrary, the EU’s imports of coal, oil and gas from Africa has increased exponentially, thus rendering the ‘green just energy transition’ riddled with multiple contradictions.
Meanwhile, big-name French footballers, Marcus Thuram and Kylian Mbappé, have made public pronouncements on the right-wing shift, amidst social media backlashes in Europe’s fractured ‘free speech’ public sphere.
BRICS Plus an ‘all-weather’ economic development bloc
South Africa’s new GNU government’s foreign policy and development co-operation would see ‘continuity with nuanced changes’. The BRICS bloc offers access to development finance, green technologies and green finance and energy resources and technology ranging from oil, gas, nuclear and solar-hydro power.
The New Development Bank will increase its portfolio, and the BRICS bloc will seek to salvage the WTO, and so on. The de-dollarisation trend is set to accelerate as the trend in BRICS Plus with core OPEC nations beginning to trade oil-commodities in bilateral BRICS currencies amplifies, further deepening the global multilateral and finance diversification shift. South Africa and Indian elections have seen a broader mix and representation of parties in their parliaments, and will see a continuation within the BRICS grouping, as the multilateral world order needs saving.
China – the engine room of global manufacturing, trade and investment
For any developing – and developed nation – China remains the anchor trading partner. China’s sheer size and manufacturing capacity, supply chains, high tech, as well as leadership in new frontier technologies – 5G, Electric Vehicles, Green tech, space tech makes it the ‘anchor trading technology state’ in the world.
Analysts Max Zengleing’s and Francois Chimilis’ new paper on Chinas trade strategy observes:
‘After decades of reform and opening, China’s rapidly expanding economic heft, massive industrial capacities, and trade footprint enable its leadership to pursue global ambitions. Measured in purchasing power parity, China’s economy has already eclipsed that of the US since 2017. However, measured by industrial value-add including manufacturing, mining, and utilities, China surpassed the US in 2011 and has continued to outpace the US industrial power ever since. In 2023, China accounted for US$5.9 trillion in global trade, or 20% of the world total, and US$5.5 trillion in foreign direct investment, about 10% of global investment stock. Additionally, Beijing’s bilateral official lending now surpasses the combined lending of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, a notable increase from its minimal presence two decades ago.”
China also remains the anchor global manufacturing hub of the world, providing significant infrastructure and trade finance beyond BRICS. With 500 million Chinese now firmly in the middle class, it is a mega market for exporters everywhere.
Even EU core states, Germany and France, and the UK are vying for the lucrative Chinese market. China and BRICS countries are thus in prime position to re-shape global norms in trade and new finance standards and systems.
South Africa’s agricultural and mineral exports flow – and imports – benefit from new affordable autos and green tech, as its giant e0-commerce platforms and trade grow exponentially. South Africa’s largest company, Naspers, would today be bankrupt without its investment in China’s Tencent tech giant.
South Africa, the G20 and the African agenda in 2025
Hosting large scale global events will be an opportunity for South Africa to show leadership. South Africa’s hosting of the G21 in 2025 should ideally follow from Brazil’s and President Lula’s leadership on the global development agenda.
Given the G20’s founding mandate in 2009 was addressing the global finance crisis of 2008, South Africa needs to align with African interests and take Africa on board by addressing the dire African debt crisis, as super high interest rate repayments are eating into social budgets making the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals largely unattainable.
President Lula da Silva has shown significant leadership in his G20 agenda in 2024, boldly addressing an inclusive multilateral, gender inclusion, and the Alliance Against Global Hunger as a lynchpin of Brazil’s G21 presidency. Will South Africa show the necessary leadership and substantively take the interests of Africa forward at the G21 in 2025?
Southern Africa is our regional home and numerous issues such as migration and climate emergencies in Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and ‘resource curse’ conflicts in Mozambique and the DRC, would need a more robust Afrocentric model of peace engagement and support.
US elections and a probable Trump presidency and erosion of multilateralism
The US elections in November 2024 are set to be a rollercoaster and a potential Trump presidency is set to continue its path of American nationalism.
Signature trade programmes such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) would probably be diluted, and African issues may take a back seat. National industrial policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), favouring US companies and a general US withdrawal from the World Trade Organisation would be a strong possibility, as well as downgrading from UN bodies such as UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) may see a disengaging US in global affairs.
To be sure, Trump is not an anti-globalist per se, but a domestic mercantilist at home and a neoliberal in terms of supporting US capital and their multinational corporations to scour the globe, extracting profits and value from the global trade system for US benefit.
Hence, a Trump presidency is set to engage in bombastic trade wars, favouring tariffs and developing its own industries and protecting American jobs – in short, ‘Make America Great Again (MAGA). In addition, it could also implement tougher anti-immigrant policies and border controls.
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The iron-clad support of Israel by the US, mainstream Europe, UK et al has generally gone against the ‘global tide of humanity and history’ over several months in the midst of the Genocide. The human rights centric foundation of the West’s liberal order – from censorship on US campuses and media to Europe’s controlled public sphere – has been sacrificed at the altar, buried in the ashes of Gaza.
Is a New World possible, one rooted in genuine respect for the UN Charter and Sustainable Development Goals? And how will South Africa engage this brave and chaotic world order?
- Ashraf Patel is a senior research associate at the Institute for Global Dialogue.
