Ensuring multilateralism trumps unilateralism

INTERNATIONAL news reporters have had much material to work from in recent weeks, in particular, the election of South Africa as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the years 2019 and 2020 as well as the much anticipated US-Korean summit in Singapore.

These are but two examples of events that will hopefully shape our history as an international community.

One of the events President Cyril Ramaphosa attended was the G7 Outreach Summit in Quebec, Canada.

While he rightfully used the occasion once again to showcase South Africa as an investment destination, the meeting and aftermath were characterised by the divisions between the US administration and the rest of the G7 group.

In the days preceding the meeting, the US president held firm on imposing trade tariffs on his countries’ allies. This caused consternation among the G7 leaders as they once again had to face the leader of the world’s largest economy succumbing to isolationism and economic nationalism.

While the G7 summit was taking place, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) was meeting in the Chinese city of Qingdao. There, China, the world’s second-largest economy, was welcoming members of the group, which include China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan.

While a political, economic and security group, the SCO is the world’s largest regional organisation in terms of geographical size and population, and is thus an influential bloc.

In pointing out the newfound elements of economic nationalism, which include among others unilateralism, trade protectionism and the backlash against globalisation, Chinese President Xi Jinping suggested a more vigorous pursuit of co-operation in order to ensure mutual benefit because individual countries’ interests and futures were interconnected. He encouraged member states to engage the International Monetary Fund, the UN and the World Bank in order to intensify partnerships in this multilateral group.

Judging by the two summits and their different orientation and outlook, we are living in a bipolar world.

It is in the context of this bipolar world, between isolationism and economic nationalism on the one hand, and multilateralism and co-operation on the other, that South Africa will have the opportunity to host the 10th BRICS summit in Johannesburg. The populations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa total more than 3 billion people, roughly 40% of the global population, while, according to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, their combined nominal gross domestic product was about $18.6 trillion (R258 trillion) – nearly a quarter of the world’s GDP.

According to government information, in 2015 trade between the BRICS countries amounted to more than R3 trillion while South Africa’s exports to BRICS countries, in 2016, was more than R138 billion, and imports about R230bn.

Trade favours our partners and South Africa must work hard to ensure that we are producing more goods and services to better balance trade.

One of the most explicit examples of multilateralism and co-operation, especially between the south, as espoused by President Xi, has been the establishment of the New Development Bank (NDB) as well as the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (BRICS CRA).

Both institutions have been set up to strengthen the global fiscal and financial infrastructure, especially for emerging economies.

The NDB grants loans for infrastructure development while the CRA seeks to protect currencies against the volatility of the financial markets. In short, this means that mechanisms will be put in place to bring stability to the rand.

With South Africa’s chairing of the BRICS group this year, many events and activities have taken place.

At these occasions, the co-operation of governments and the exploration of business opportunities are engaged so that BRICS does not become a meeting of the heads of the government.

Rather it is envisaged that the opportunity is given to citizens from these countries to interact. For example, the BRICS Think Tank held a BRICS Academic Forum in Johannesburg last month.

This was an opportunity for academics in the five countries to share experiences and research. Guiding the activities are the themes for the year:

Creating a virtual vaccine platform for collaboration in vaccine innovation and development partners.

Establishing a BRICS Gender and Women’s Desk.

Establishing a working group on peacekeeping.

Creating an economic strategy for BRICS as we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Through this kind of collaboration we will be able to defeat isolationism, protectionism and nationalism.

Before leaving for the infamous G7 Summit, the US president suggested that Russian president Vladimir Putin be re-invited to the G7, as it was the G8 before. The Russians indicated they would rather concentrate on broader and representative groups such as the G20. Multilateralism par excellence.

As with the SCO, we see that the Chinese, Indian and Russian commitment to multilateralism, and even Russia’s response to the G7 invite, is in line with South Africa’s foreign policy.

In a globalised world there are opportunities for South Africa but there are also threats.

We could either deal with the threats as the US administration is doing, but this will yield no positive results.

The only way to beat the threats is to partner with others, as with BRICS, so that we can build relationships that are mutually beneficial to all our people.

Nkoana-Mashabane is the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform and Matuba is secretary-general of the ANC Women’s League