China’s rise threatens SA
Chinese Premier Wen Jia-Bao’s visit to seven African countries appears to have been more symbolic than pragmatic. Low-priced China-made products are dumped in every part of the world, including South Africa, resulting in the demise of local manufacturing and exacer-bating unemployment.
China has been the country most targeted for anti-dumping investigations for the ninth consecutive year since the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) establishment in 1995. In 2004 alone, there were 68 cases against Chinese-made products, involving $3-billion.
In line with WTO agreements, many countries recently abolished quota restrictions on imported products. However, to combat dumping, the United States and the European Union have acted in concert by setting restrictions against textiles and shoes from China.
Under-valuation of the Chinese reminbi means that China’s exports are highly competitive. In reality, South Africa-China trade ties grew 30% last year compared to 2004. China still enjoys a trade surplus with this country — last year, imports from China totalled R31,4-million, while exports came to R8,7-million, with an imbalance of R22,7-million in China’s favour.
The rise of China originally refers to the increasing influence and status of its economy in the international arena. However, the current perception of China’s rise has gradually become synonymous with the concept of the threat it poses.
In the late 1970s, China’s reforms attracted labour-intensive industries from abroad and the country was transformed into the world’s factory. The increasing consumerism of the Chinese market is now also the focus of international attention.
With increasing economic strength, Beijing has exerted its influence on global politics, arms sales and regional security. Despite the absence of external threats, China’s military budget has increased by 10% annually since 1996, reaching $30-billion last year. Various international analysts suggest the actual budget may be two or three times higher.
China’s crude oil demands last year reached 2,3-million barrels, of which 949-million were imported, making it the second largest importer of crude, next to the US. To maintain its supply of energy and raw materials from Africa and Latin America, Beijing has voraciously engaged in mergers and acquisitions, becoming a shareholder in multinationals and developing overseas mining activities. This has caught the attention of international markets, causing volatility in commodity prices. — Vance Chang, Taipei Liaison Office, Rosebank, Johannesburg
Two economics ”experts” advise our textiles industry to emulate New Zealand and re-invent themselves to be able to compete with China. That’s the ticket for a small Third World country with semi-skilled labour — emulate a very wealthy, highly educated First World country.
It is trite thinking like this that inspires some of our policy-makers in their delusion that South African manufacturing can compete with China if only it got its act together and, to quote the Department of Trade and Industry, ”moved up the value chain”.
Such people have not seen the Chinese in action — a fact-finding mission doesn’t really cut it.
We can’t compete because the Chinese are ruthless at protecting their own industry: they subsidise capital, labour, electricity and tax, and educate their people without claiming business should do more.
The Chinese government is the ally of small and medium businesses, helping them to compete. In South Africa the relationship is limited to the government and big business.
South African business is not getting protection and support, so is re-inventing itself by shutting up shop and allocating capital elsewhere (and shedding thousands of semi skilled jobs that will never be replaced). — A Bizos, ex-Chinaman
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Cheap and unfair labour practice is what enables the Chinese to dump goods on foreign markets. The only effective way to curb this unfair practice is to enforce measures to protect the Chinese workers. If Chinese workers are treated fairly through fair labour practice, workers internationally will be protected.
Progressive organisations and governments, labour organisations like the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the International Labour Organisation should show solidarity with the Chinese workers by challenging the Chinese government to implement fair labour practices. We should be reading newspaper stories about Cosatu marches to the Chinese Embassy to hand over a memorandum calling for fair treatment of Chinese workers. — Mighty Madasa, Cape Town
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In the context of Chinese Premier Wen Jia-Bao’s official visit to South Africa last week, we would like to remind South Africans about the continued lack of religious freedom and the human rights violations experienced by six million Tibetans living under Chinese control. — Tsenyi and Sonam, Lyttelton
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Mbeki is no Chavez
Ronald Suresh Roberts (”One step leftward, two steps right”, June 23) compares Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s struggle with the Confede-ration of Venezuelan Workers with President Thabo Mbeki’s relationship with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party. He completely misrepresents the reality in both Venezuela and South Africa.
On being elected, Chavez halted all forms of privatisation and has nationalised unproductive privately owned farmlands and abandoned factories. In this way, he has aligned himself with the Venezuelan poor in the fight against the local and international bourgeoisie.
Contrast this with Mbeki, who worked closely with First World advisers to promote the pillars of neo-liberal capitalism through the growth, employment and redistribution policy, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and now the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa. Under Nelson Mandela’s and Mbeki’s leadership, state assets have been privatised or corporatised and trade tariffs slashed, exacerbating poverty, unemployment and inequality. Indeed, Mbeki has declared himself the champion of the bourgeoisie, not the poor.
Roberts also misrepresents the processes around Petroleos de Venezuela. Previous Venezuelan governments had corporatised the company, while Chavez reversed this. He reasserted direct control over it in order to use the profits from the sale of oil for social programmes such as healthcare.
This would be the equivalent of the South African government retaking control of Sasol and using the profits from the sale of its products to finance social programmes! To compare Chavez’s revolutionary changes at Petroleos de Venezuela with Maria Ramos’s corporatisation of Transnet is ludicrous.
Roberts also makes an absurd comparison between the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers and Cosatu. The former is a conservative body aligned with the interests of the bourgeoisie. For all its faults — including its support for Jacob Zuma and its failure to link up with social movements — Cosatu cannot be accused of this.
Indeed, it was Cosatu that mounted strikes against privatisation and embarked on a campaign to highlight the plight of the poor. It is clearly left of the government.
The reality is that Mbeki is no Chavez, Cosatu is not the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, and South Africa does not have a left-wing revolutionary government. — Shawn Hattingh, Cape Town
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Is this the leftism the M&G is going to gravitate towards under its new opinion editor? Editorial independence/prerogative is one thing, but carrying such a muddled article is beyond me. Roberts simply does not know what he is writing about. — Ebrahim Harvey, Cape Town
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A litany of flops
The SABC may be a state-owned organisation, but it is supposed to accommodate divergent interests and not only those of the ANC. It has dismally failed to maintain the requisite balance. Especially since the appointment of managing director of news Snuki Zikalala (pictured) and CEO Dali Mpofu, the corporation has been an embarrassment to South Africa.
A litany of glaring flops have unfolded since their appointment, the latest being the canning of a documentary on Thabo Mbeki. Its top executives have cast even more doubt on their credibility by asking Zwelakhe Sisulu to investigate the row.
The issue is one of perceived ANC interference. Sisulu is a ”son” of the ANC, whatever his standing as a professional journalist.
Is there a dearth of suitable people to investigate? It also perplexes me that Sisulu could allow himself to be drawn into such a Mickey Mouse exercise; it will surely compromise him.
It was abhorrent for the previous government to use the national broadcaster as its vehicle, and it is equally so now. In fact, it is more abhorrent and reprehensible, considering the sacrifices that went into winning our democracy. — Reba Gaoraelwe
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The Democratic Alliance’s campaign against the SABC should primarily target Zikalala who, on his appointment, highlighted the fact that he was firstly an ANC member and secondly a journalist. No wonder the quality of SABC news has deteriorated.
While the Labour Department’s spokesperson, Zikalala barged into the offices of e.tv with a team of labour inspectors and a SABC TV news crew to expose alleged labour law offences at the independent broadcaster. Nothing came of it.
I agree that the SABC coverage of the Tafelsig by-election was blatantly unfair. It focused on an investigation by the social services department, headed by an ANC minister, against the DA candidate’s wife, instead of reporting the election results.
Under Zikalala’s leadership, SABC TV news has become a state broadcaster that frequently dedicates its first item on bulletins to ”news” of the president or other Cabinet ministers. When every presidential event becomes a major news event, we should be worried.
The national broadcaster must resist party political interference. Anyone working for SABC TV news who shows bias should immediately be dismissed or redeployed. — R Brown
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A newsletter is not inclusivity
Hoosain Kagee’s riposte to Jeremy Cronin (June 9) vacuously characterises Thabo Mbeki’s dialogue with civil society as amounting to inclusivity, and confuses centralisation of policy with centralisation of power.
Inclusiveness is not ”debate and dialogue” and the writing of a weekly newsletter that creates a façade of consultation. It means including specific constituencies (read working class) at all levels of decision-making, not patronising and selective engagement.
When the ANC came to power we had great expectations of a new paradigm of power in which leaders would be servants of the people, discarding the trappings of power seen in other failed revolutions. We believed this would result in participatory democracy, at least within the ANC.
Instead we have seen democratic centralism with the concentration of power in the presidency, the stifling of debate, attempts to silence civil society groupings by labelling those refusing to sell their souls as ”ultra-leftists”, and the emasculation of institutions set up to prevent abuse of power, including the standing committee on public accounts and the Public Protector.
We expected this new paradigm to place subaltern groups at the centre of a new economic policy and not at its margins. No one would argue against a centrally focused policy framework in a developmental state. What is being objected to is the hijacking of the ANC agenda through centralisation of power. This is what Cronin was referring to and what Kagee spectacularly misses. — Rasimeni Manjezi, Cape Town
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Let Cyril lead
Cyril Ramaphosa is the right person to lead South Africa.
He was a union leader who knows well the wishes and the miseries of the working class. He knows what the majority want — a better education system, a health system of the highest standard, and employment.
Ramaphosa’s leadership in the Codesa discussions, his bravery and his sharp mind played a huge role in the writing of our Constitution.
If he were president, we would not be subsidising the madness of Robert Mugabe. He would be sensitive to the pain of retrenched miners. He would have fired Manto Tshabalala-Msimang long ago.
If we can’t get Ramaphosa, Tito Mboweni or Trevor Manuel could also lead the nation into the next decade. — Bishop Buyisile, western Kwenene