Questions are being raised about why Alfred Nzo’s Chinese visit included ANC MPs, writes Gaye Davis
A POLITICAL row is brewing over Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Nzo’s visit to China, with questions to be asked in Parliament as to why his delegation included four African National Congress MPs. Questions have also been raised over the timing of the visit, ordered at President Nelson Mandela’s behest.
ANC MP Raymond Suttner, chair of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Portfolio Committee, and fellow committee members, Danny Jordaan and Max Sisulu, went on the trip — the first to Beijing by a South African foreign minister. MP Blade Nzimande, who chairs the ANC’s national executive sub-committee on foreign affairs, also went.
National Party foreign affairs spokesman Dr Boy Geldenhuys told the Mail & Guardian he was tabling questions in Parliament about the delegation and its composition, as it clearly did not reflect the Government of National Unity.
“If the ANC wanted to visit Beijing that would be fine, but if the government is sending a delegation overseas with a view to giving advice to the GNU it should at least reflect all parties,” said Geldenhuys.
Speaking the day he returned to South Africa from his 48-hour trip, during which he met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Premier Li Peng, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen and Foreign Trade Minister Wu Yi, Nzo told the Mail & Guardian the composition of the delegation — – which included Foreign Affairs officials — – had been decided by Mandela.
“He decided to broaden it [to include the ANC MPs],” Nzo said.
While Nzo’s visit was long overdue, questions have been raised about it taking place at a time when relations between Taiwan and Beijing were particularly fraught. The initial plan was for the trip to include a visit to Taiwan, but the South Africans could not be accommodated because of the presidential elections there.
Geldenhuys criticised the timing. “At a time when the whole world was distancing itself from China because it was threatening Taiwan with the use of live ammunition, we send a government delegation. What kind of message does that send?”
Foreign Affairs officials maintained Nzo’s schedule prevented any changes. Nzo said the trip had been planned “long before anyone thought missiles would start flying”. A delegation would go to Taiwan as soon as it could be arranged, he said.
Dismissing reports which indicated that he had signalled, while in Beijing, that South Africa intended forging diplomatic ties with mainland China, Nzo stressed the visit was “a fact- finding mission”.
Nzo said he would only provide details when he had made his report to Mandela “and then South Africa will get to know what the state of relations are between ourselves and China and Taiwan”.
However, he did confirm that he had conveyed to Beijing Mandela’s willingness to mediate between Beijing and Taiwan in the dispute which has seen them at loggerheads since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the nationalist Kuomintang fled to Taiwan and set up the Republic of China, while Mao Zedong formed the communist People’s Republic of China on the mainland.
“They themselves say the problem is an internal one,” Nzo said.
The issue of the two Chinas is possibly South Africa’s most pressing diplomatic dilemma at present. Foreign analysts hold the view that South Africa cannot continue to deny the existence of a world power that occupies a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, has the world’s largest population, possesses a nuclear capability and boasts one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
South Africa’s long-standing relationship with Taiwan is a product of both countries’ one- time pariah status among nations. However, while Taiwan has successfully spent the last decade democratising, China’s human rights record has been poor — though some analysts believe this should not be a reason to avoid diplomatic ties.
For South Africa, the challenge is that no country has yet succeeded in being able to maintain relations with both China and Taiwan, as this would imply there were two Chinas — and Beijing has always insisted there is only one.
South Africa is the most significant of the 31 countries that recognise Taiwan, and Taipei is desperate for the relationship to continue. To this end it has been extremely generous with aid and was one of the countries which made substantial donations to the ANC to help it fight the 1994 election.
It is sometimes argued that Chinese support for the ANC during its struggle against apartheid should be considered a factor. But the head of the ANC’s international affairs department, Yusuf Salojee, said this week that Chinese support amounted to little more than backing UN resolutions. “We got no logistical or financial support from China. Even a small country like Cuba gave us more assistance.”
He said that during “the height of the struggle” in the mid-1980s China had sold AK- 47s to the South African Defence Force.
South Africa’s diplomatic challenge is that no country has yet succeeded in being able to maintain relations with both China and Taiwan, which the mainland sees as a renegade province. Beijing insists that formal ties with Taiwan must first be broken before diplomatic relations can be forged with itself.