Then ANC leader Nelson Mandela meets with Chinese Communist Party General

Quartz
Date: July 28, 2018
By: Christopher Williams, University of the Witwatersrand

Secretary Jiang Zemin in Beijing, Oct. 6, 1992 (AP Photo)

It is 20 years since South Africa and the People’s Republic of China, or mainland China, established formal diplomatic ties. Though China is now South Africa’s largest trading partner and a co-member of the BRICS grouping which also includes Brazil, Russia and India, relations between South Africa and China were not always so close.

When president Nelson Mandela took office in May 1994, he was immediately confronted with a vexing foreign policy problem: how to balance the country’s diplomatic relations with Taiwan—inherited from the apartheid government—with Beijing’s “One China principle”. This principle holds that Taiwan is part of China, and that Beijing is the only legitimate authority over all of China.

In a recently published paper based on archival material as well as interviews with former South African officials, we shed light on the texture and timing of the decision to recognize China and cut ties with Taiwan.

After Mandela’s inauguration it was widely expected that the new, democratic South Africa would soon recognize mainland China. The world’s most populous country had a rapidly growing economy and significant international influence, including a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. At the time 159 states recognized the People’s Republic of China, while only 29 had diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
[FULL  STORY]