South Africa scores World Cup diplomatic goals

Various meetings between the South African government and foreign heads of state visiting the country for the Fifa Soccer World Cup have again demonstrated the South Africa’s differentiated foreign relations priorities.

While President Jacob Zuma welcomed and addressed a group of heads of state at an official reception in Sandton last Friday, the day of the official start of World Cup 2010, it was the meetings that Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe had on the margins of the tournament on Saturday with United States Vice President Joseph Biden and Bolivian President Evo Morales that are of particular interest.

During the meeting with the Bolivian leader, Motlanthe reaffirmed South Africa's commitment in assisting Bolivia as that country undertakes constitutional reforms. Morales has followed a similar route of socialist reforms and wealth redistribution as his equally controversial Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez.

At the meeting, it was Morales who highlighted the need to strengthen bilateral and trade relations between South Africa and Bolivia. He undertook to ensure that the Bolivian minister of External Affairs paid a visit to South Africa to follow up on these issues.

A less committal Motlanthe replied that he was “pleased to hear of the progress made in issues we agreed upon”.

In stark contrast to the meeting with Morales, Deputy President Motlanthe received Vice President Biden at his official residence at Tambo House in Pretoria for bilateral discussions that went much deeper and were accompanied, it seemed, by much greater diplomatic warmth. It was the first high level meeting after the April 2010 meeting between presidents Zuma and Barack Obama, and the establishment of the US-South Africa Strategic Dialogue by South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and US Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton in Washington.

Friday’s meeting focused on international challenges such as climate change, while on a bilateral level it focused on how the US could assist South Africa with regard to the government’s five priorities, namely education, health, rural development, job creation and crime.

Afterward the South African government indicated that alignment around these priorities underpinned the South African government’s engagement with the US.

According to the South African government, the priorities identified by both South Africa and the US include good governance and democracy; respect for human rights; peace and stability; as well as development through the creation of economic opportunities for all Africans. South Africa and the US are already working in partnership on a number of projects such as the fight against HIV and Aids, and particularly other communicable diseases.

This partnership, strengthened by the US-South Africa Strategic Dialogue and the Annual Bilateral Forum, will lay the foundation, and assist South Africa in reaching its Millennium Development Goals, says the government.

Deputy President Motlanthe and Vice President Biden agreed that the Strategic Dialogue and high-level visits created the ideal opportunities to share views and experiences. In conclusion, both parties expressed the wish that significant progress would be made in deepening bilateral relations with real progress before the next Ministerial meeting of the US-South Africa Strategic Dialogue, scheduled for October 2010.

It is clear from these two meetings where South Africa’s international priorities lie. Countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia provide a number of limited, or lesser, strategic advantages for South Africa. In this respect, they offer Pretoria accessible friends in developing South America, which at the same time may have some attractive resources to offer, such as oil.

They further provide handy linkages in the context of developing nations and related issues on the global stage.

And they help the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to retain its sometimes helpful membership of the international socialist club, although the relationship with the socialist world has mostly symbolic, historical and fraternal political significance these days.

On the other hand, the meeting with the US vice president is clearly the one that really counted in the network opportunity which the World Cup offered. It is with the US that real bilateral trade and development agreements exist and are being expanded.

In the same context, South Africa’s relationship with developing countries such as Brazil in South America, and India and China in Asia, are of much greater importance too.