EDITORIAL: Listen carefully to what the G7 is telling us

The decision by Japan, the host of May’s Group of Seven (G7), to “uninvite” SA to the leaders’ summit has rightly sent shock waves in diplomatic and business circles in SA. For the first time in many years, SA will not be attending this year’s G7 event. Instead, the Japanese government has invited AU chairman Azali Assoumani.          

The government has sought to downplay the significance of the decision. Japan-SA trade and investment relations might not be immediately affected. But President Cyril Ramaphosa will miss a chance for small talk with world leaders on big issues facing the world today. This is more important than it may initially seem.

There is no way to read this move by the G7 as anything other than a snub, which should be seen quite clearly as a shot across the bows by the West against Pretoria’s controversial foreign policy decisions. This is the first sign of the consequences this government has been warned about repeatedly. There has been no material harm done, but we would do well to take note of the message being conveyed to us.

The timing and the optics of the decision tell an important story. Coming from a generally nonconfrontational Japan, the decision should communicate a strong sense of irritation. High-level SA government sources believe Tokyo is retaliating for being snubbed by Pretoria at 2022’s Africa-Japan summit in Morocco. SA’s absence was in solidarity with the people of Western Sahara.

Business people and diplomats agree that the Western Sahara issue played a role, albeit a minor one, in Tokyo’s calculations. More important is SA’s position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. SA has supported Russia with numerous ministerial visits, a joint military exercise, and has refused to join a chorus of international condemnation of Moscow at the UN.

Although the department of international relations & co-operation has offered to “mediate” an end to the year-long conflict, it has done next to nothing to back this commitment, let alone behave in a neutral manner, as would be expected of an honest broker acting in good faith.

For their part, local businesses quite rightly worry about the growing visibility of SA diplomacy increasingly out of kilter with the national goals of creating jobs and ending poverty and inequality by promoting trade and investment. There is no beneficial link between supporting Russia and SA’s commercial and investment interests. Bilateral trade is minuscule. The only link is that the ANC has historical ties with the Soviet Union, the forerunner to today’s Russia, which, ironically, included Ukraine.

Even more concerning is that if SA continues on this path, it risks losing its exporters’ preferential market access to the EU and US markets. In a year, the US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act is due for review and there are already ominous noises in the halls of American power. We ought to read the writing on the wall written for us by the G7. We are losing friends, and this does nothing but hurt us.