LETTER: Look past China

Gracelin Baskaran’s most recent column refers (“SA will fail in shunning US trade and rerouting exports to China”, April 24).

While it’s good that China imports SA raw materials (and we should seek to sell them more), let’s be under no illusions that China is a great all-round trading partner or “friend”.

Regarding manufactured goods China has destroyed many SA industries — from textiles to steel — putting millions of South Africans out of work with cheap, highly subsidised exports, currency manipulation and asymmetric tariff and nontariff barriers.

There isn’t a snowball’s hope in hell that SA will ever sell anything more than raw materials (minerals and agricultural commodities) to China. Instead, the future of our industrial sector and job creation relies on deepening strategic — mutually beneficial — trade, investment and financing relationships with the West, the developed Middle East and the rapidly growing Asian markets.

The global shift under way presents huge multipolar opportunities for SA. It’s not about one or the other, or either/or. We need to stop looking at the world as a primary school playground composed of buddies and bullies, and wake up to the realities of what’s going on.

Today’s world is far more complex and nuanced, with small, niche opportunities everywhere.

Stuart Meyer
Via BusinessLIVE

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