In the wake of the International Court of Justice’s decision in the case of South Africa v Israel (on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip), whereby the court granted certain provisional measures (and subsequently granted additional provisional measures on 28 March 2024), a wave of self-congratulations and an air of victory on behalf of the oppressed and marginalised were evident. After years of pursuing a “transactional” foreign policy, in which the South African government attempted to please everyone, the ICJ case now finally represented for South Africa – as Steven Friedman recently claimed in Foreign Affairs – a welcome return to the ANC-led government’s true identity, one in which “principles above a desire to please” is the guiding light. In Friedman’s words, the ICJ case represented the country’s “quest to retake the moral high ground”. As South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa recently affirmed in his newsletter to fellow South Africans, “South Africa cannot stand idly by as ‘another genocide is carried out’ in the Gaza Strip.” The champion of the marginalised, the oppressed and the downtrodden is apparently back.
This lofty depiction of South Africa has caused me to wonder when and how imminently we can expect a change in course in South Africa’s stance towards the island nation of Taiwan. In short, my question is this: I am wondering whether South Africa would be willing to stand up for the cause of some 24 million Taiwanese living in a vibrant, thriving, progressive and hard-won liberal democracy, one faced with incessant People’s Republic of China (PRC) coercion and threats of war, and one in which one party in the conflict seeks rights (some of which are endowed by nature, others by international law) that the other party denies? As the reader might recall, South Africa cut ties with Taipei (at the behest of the ANC and under incessant Chinese pressure) in 1998 in preference for establishing ties with Beijing. Then, as now, the Taiwan issue turns on the status of Taiwan and, particularly, the PRC’s claim that Taiwan is and should always remain fully under its jurisdiction. Taiwan, an economic powerhouse, is a thriving, vibrant and progressive liberal democracy, China an authoritarian state. For China, unification is non-negotiable, with President Xi Jinping becoming increasingly impatient and often reminding Taiwan of the PRC’s willingness to use force in the face of any action undertaken by Taiwan towards independence – in short, independence means war. Although China stresses the desirability of peaceful reunification with Taiwan, President Xi has made it abundantly clear that the “historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled, and will definitely be fulfilled”, an endeavour that does not rule out the use of military force. For Beijing, Taiwan undoubtedly forms part of its broader revisionist and expansionist agenda in East Asia, but there is more to this than brute strategic considerations. As John Mearsheimer recently remarked in Foreign Affairs, Taiwan constitutes “sacred territory” for Beijing. Tellingly, coercive Chinese live-fire military exercises across the Taiwan Strait are increasing.
However, it is worth pointing out that PRC sovereignty claims over Taiwan are hotly contested – and rightly so. As the esteemed historian Margaret MacMillan writes in The uses and abuses of history, Chinese claims that “Taiwan has belonged to China for more than a thousand years” are patently untrue. Only since the Qing dynasty, MacMillan notes, did some form of Chinese control emerge over Taiwan. In Jonathan Sullivan’s and Lev Nachman’s Taiwan: A contested democracy under threat, the authors are even more candid: the PRC, in fact, has never actually ruled Taiwan. While the case of genocide in the Gaza Strip seems far removed and unconnected to the Taiwan Strait issue, there are more similarities than meet the eye. South Africa’s foreign policy towards Israel (and concomitantly the war in Gaza) should be seen against the backdrop of South Africa’s pursuit of a larger set of values – ostensibly grounded in notions such as human rights, the right to self-determination, and (liberal) democracy – and of the broader objective of creating a world order based on “our” common humanity, as minister of international relations and cooperation of South Africa, Naledi Pandor, has recently proclaimed. South Africa’s foreign policy towards Israel and its war in Gaza should therefore not be seen in isolation, but as part of a broader framework in which the cause of the weak, marginalised and oppressed are apparently advocated. Surely, in the case of Taiwan, too, a strong case can be made for some form of moral intervention for a Taiwan that strongly wishes to decide its own future, and on behalf of those Taiwanese who long for independence, a life free from coercion, and a society governed by the ideals of liberal democracy, all of which the South African government championed in the ICJ case – and which it continues to champion.
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What matters in this case – or what should matter to the South African government – is this: for the majority of Taiwan’s citizens, any notion of unification with the PRC is simply unacceptable, and, it is worth mentioning, the majority of the island nation’s citizens now identify as Taiwanese (not Chinese). Accordingly, the majority of Taiwan’s citizens have no desire whatsoever to unify with China. Although they live under conditions of rampant insecurity, threats of war, and marginalisation (by other countries and international organisations), this situation remains preferable for Taiwan’s citizens to the prospect of unification with China.
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The context in which Taiwan’s citizens conduct their lives is one of chronic economic and national insecurity, marginalisation and coercive PRC military action. What matters in this case – or what should matter to the South African government – is this: for the majority of Taiwan’s citizens, any notion of unification with the PRC is simply unacceptable, and, it is worth mentioning, the majority of the island nation’s citizens now identify as Taiwanese (not Chinese). Accordingly, the majority of Taiwan’s citizens have no desire whatsoever to unify with China. Although they live under conditions of rampant insecurity, threats of war, and marginalisation (by other countries and international organisations), this situation remains preferable for Taiwan’s citizens to the prospect of unification with China. China’s ostensibly generous offer of “one country, two systems” (by which some semblance of Taiwan’s freedoms would remain) is, as Jonathan Sullivan and Lev Nachman have pointed out, “a political non-starter”. Importantly, Taiwan’s citizens identify with their country’s liberal values, not the values endorsed by the PRC.
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Of course, championing the cause of Taiwan does not have to imply establishing formal ties with Taiwan. South Africa would never do this. It can and should mean putting pressure on China to recognise Taiwan’s right to self-determination, the ending of coercive PRC military actions against Taiwan, and lobbying for greater Taiwanese inclusion in international organisations.
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Of course, championing the cause of Taiwan does not have to imply establishing formal ties with Taiwan. South Africa would never do this. It can and should mean putting pressure on China to recognise Taiwan’s right to self-determination, the ending of coercive PRC military actions against Taiwan, and lobbying for greater Taiwanese inclusion in international organisations. Again, while the ICJ case speaks to the issue of genocide in Gaza, South Africa’s actions in that case are ostensibly motivated by a deep compassion for the marginalised, the oppressed, the occupied and those stripped of rights endowed by nature and international law. Accordingly, in the spirit of solidarity with those (ie, the weak) who are bullied by the strong (incidentally, an argument often invoked by South Africa when considering United States support for Israel and how that support affects Palestinian lives), will South Africa also champion the cause of the marginalised and coerced in a small East Asian island nation in the face of the great, continent-sized Chinese power hell-bent on unification (by force, if need be)? I doubt it.
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As I am a realist scholar of international politics, it would come as no big surprise to me that, in the case of the Taiwan issue, South Africa would vehemently pursue its national interests and its conception of what the world ought to look like.
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You might, of course, say: “Eben, you are certifiably crazy. You need to keep in mind that the Taiwan issue is complex and vastly different to the Israel-Palestine question.” True, there are differences between the two cases indeed, but there are undoubtedly also similarities, to wit, the quest for and endorsement of values and rights championed with great pomp and pride by the South African government, not the least of which is the right to self-determination. That the Taiwan issue is complex is also true, although the same can be said of the Israel-Palestine question, in which South Africa has no qualms about intervening based on its having a solution (grounded in the rights and values it champions) at hand. While South Africa loudly and proudly depicts itself as the champion of the weak, the marginalised and the bullied and as a staunch defender of liberal values and rights (and pats itself on the back for all of this), I would not hold my breath that even a word in support of Taiwan will be uttered. I, of course, fully understand the myriad of reasons why South Africa would never stand up for Taiwan. In the case of Taiwan, South Africa’s moral voice is drowned out by strategic and ideological interest – in short, South Africa, like most states in international politics, is much more self-regarding than other-regarding. As I am a realist scholar of international politics, it would come as no big surprise to me that, in the case of the Taiwan issue, South Africa would vehemently pursue its national interests and its conception of what the world ought to look like.
However, as a human being and fellow citizen of planet Earth (and, of course, South Africa), I find it extremely unpalatable when the South African government positions itself as the designated champion of the marginalised and oppressed if, when and where it suits its conceptions of justice and its determination of a case worth standing up for. I have no doubt in mind that if (or when?) a Chinese invasion of Taiwan occurs, the South African government would staunchly defend the Chinese cause, adding that intervention (moral or otherwise) should be avoided, seeing that the Taiwan issue is an internal issue that the principal parties involved should resolve among themselves. The Taiwan issue, the South African government would say, is for Taiwan and China to resolve. Not so, it appears to be the case, elsewhere. That South Africa often vilifies and rebukes other states (usually, but not exclusively, the United States) for their selective intervention in cases where coercion, marginalisation and oppression are rampant becomes then hypocritical.
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In this attempt to stand up for the weak, South Africa’s behaviour is not only an attempt to underscore its values and obtain certain strategic objectives – no, the behaviour itself is deeply sentimental: not only does South Africa deem it necessary to act in the Gaza Strip in defence of the weak, marginalised and oppressed, but it does so in full public view. ... Caring and compassion for the weak and marginalised is, however, reserved only for those cases which South Africa deems worthwhile or, at the very least, non-threatening to its strategic relations.
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This hypocrisy is, of course, not unusual in the history of international politics, and I very well understand the strategic reasons for why states engage in it. In the case of Israel and Gaza, too, South Africa has clear strategic objectives (notwithstanding its ostensibly universal moral objective in championing the cause of the Palestinians), to wit, creating a world order centred on our (ie, South Africa’s) conception of what the world – or the good life – should look like. In becoming the champion of the weak, the South African government is acting in ways that seek to strengthen its position in what it sees as a rapidly changing international order. In this attempt to stand up for the weak, South Africa’s behaviour is not only an attempt to underscore its values and obtain certain strategic objectives – no, the behaviour itself is deeply sentimental: not only does South Africa deem it necessary to act in the Gaza Strip in defence of the weak, marginalised and oppressed, but it does so in full public view. As Theodore Dalrymple wrote, albeit in a different context, in Spoilt rotten: The toxic cult of sentimentality, “It is no longer enough to shed an unseen tear in private over the death of Little Nell; it is necessary to do so, or do the modern equivalent, in full public view.” Caring and compassion for the weak and marginalised is, however, reserved only for those cases which South Africa deems worthwhile or, at the very least, non-threatening to its strategic relations. Accordingly, let us not pretend that we (ie, the South African government) are the champion of the oppressed – the great moral crusader – when, in fact, we are not. One swallow doesn’t make a summer. If South Africa is unwilling to stand up for Taiwan and its hard-won liberal democracy, I hope that someone else will, even though I won’t exactly hold my breath.
Eben Coetzee lectures in the Department of Political Studies and Governance, University of the Free State
Lees ook in LitNet Akademies:
Die toekoms van Taiwan: strategiese realiteite en die kernwapenopsie
Kommentaar
South Africa in championing the cause of the oppressed and marginalized has apparently taken over the role of Sweden in the 60 ´s, when this country did exactly that during the premiership of Olav Palme and his Social Democrats. It is greatly refreshing to see South Africa abandoning its slavish subservience to the USA of the past, a country that certainly did not champion the rights of the oppressed poor in South America and elsewhere, but supported one brutish military regime after another.
Three cheers for South Africa. May it be blessed in its new course and reap the benefits..