Abstract
This chapter compares the rate of growth in South African exports to Hong Kong and Taiwan between 2001 and 2017, to gauge whether its forming of relations with China to maintain access to Hong Kong resulted in a “pay off.” In the raw and statistical data for the entire period, we deduce that exports to Hong Kong outgrew those to Taiwan by an average of 2.56% per year, and a comparative growth of 40.91% for the entire period vis-à-vis Taiwan. Thus, on the face of it, we can deduce that South Africa’s decision to switch to the PRC, insofar as it was predicated on the need to maintain access to Hong Kong, was worth it. Further, Mainland China’s outgrowing of Taiwan in importance as an export market for South Africa is evident in that its exports to Mainland China between 2001 and 2017 outgrew those to the former by 13.64% per year and by 218.28% overall.
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Notes
- 1.
Ben Blanchard, ‘China Wins Back Burkina Faso, Urges Taiwan’s Last African Ally to Follow,’ Reuters, May 26, 2018. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-burkina/china-wins-back-burkina-faso-urges-taiwans-last-african-ally-to-follow-idUSKCN1IR09W (Last accessed: 6 March 2019).
- 2.
“Beijing issued numerous warnings in the months leading up to the election, urging the Taiwanese people to reject Lee Teng-hui and his ‘splittist’ agenda” (Rigger 1999: 175). Beijing further “reiterated its threat to use military force if Taiwan sought independence” (Rigger 1999: 175). See: Rigger, Shelley, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (New York: Routledge, 1999).
- 3.
Daniel Workman, ‘Top South African Trading Partners,’ World’s Top Exports, February 4, 2019. Available at: http://www.worldstopexports.com/top-south-african-import-partners/ (Last accessed: 5 March 2019).
- 4.
MIT Observatory of Economic Complexity, ‘What Does South Africa Import from China?,’ MIT Observatory of Economic Complexity, 2016. Available at: https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/sitc/import/zaf/chn/show/2016/ (Last accessed: 5 March 2019).
- 5.
MIT Observatory of Economic Complexity, ‘What Does South Africa Export to China?,’ MIT Observatory of Economic Complexity, 2016. Available at: https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/sitc/export/zaf/chn/show/2016/ (Last accessed: 5 March 2019).
- 6.
David Monyae and Gibson Banda, ‘Sino-South African Relations at Twenty: Key Lessons,’ UJCI Africa-China Occasional Paper Series 5, 2018, p. 2. Available at: http://confucius-institute.joburg/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/UJCI-Occasional-Paper-No-5.pdf (Last accessed: 6 March 2019).
- 7.
Garth Le Pere and Garth Shelton, China, Africa and South Africa: South-South Co-operation in a Global Era (Pretoria: Institute for Global Dialogue), 2007, p. 20.
- 8.
Monyae and Banda, ‘Sino-South African Relations,’ p. 12.
- 9.
Monyae and Banda, ‘Sino-South African Relations,’ p. 3.
- 10.
Monyae and Banda, ‘Sino-South African Relations,’ p. 4.
- 11.
Susan Booysen, ‘Hues of the ANC’s Chinese Homecoming,’ Daily Maverick, August 1, 2018. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-08-01-hues-of-the-ancs-chinese-homecoming/ (Last accessed: 3 March 2019).
- 12.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 8.
- 13.
Ian Taylor, ‘The Ambiguous Commitment: The People’s Republic of China and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle in South Africa,’ Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 18:1 (2000), pp. 91–106.
- 14.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 8.
- 15.
Ian Taylor, ‘The Ambiguous Commitment,’ p. 93.
- 16.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 9.
- 17.
Christopher Williams and Claire Hurst, ‘Caught Between Two Chinas: Assessing South Africa’s Switch from Taipei to Beijing,’ South African Historical Journal, 70:3 (2018), pp. 559–602.
- 18.
Williams and Hurst, ‘Caught Between Two Chinas,’ p. 561.
- 19.
Williams and Hurst, ‘Caught Between Two Chinas,’ p. 570.
- 20.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ pp. 9–10.
- 21.
In Williams and Hurst, ‘Caught Between Two Chinas,’ p. 13.
- 22.
Williams and Hurst, ‘Caught Between Two Chinas,’ p. 13; see also Monyae and Banda, ‘Sino-South African Relations,’ p. 2.
- 23.
Williams and Hurst, ‘Caught Between Two Chinas,’ p. 21.
- 24.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 11.
- 25.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 6.
- 26.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 7.
- 27.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, ‘Burkina Faso: Between Taiwan’s Active Public Diplomacy and China’s Business Attractiveness,’ South African Journal of International Affairs, 23:4 (2017), pp. 495–519.
- 28.
Williams and Hurst, ‘Caught Between Two Chinas,’ p. 13.
- 29.
Yue Wang, ‘Twenty Years After the Handover, Is Hong Kong Losing Its Shine in China?,’ Forbes, June 29, 2017. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2017/06/29/twenty-years-after-the-handover-is-hong-kong-losing-its-shine-in-china/#3eb9c77857c7 (Last accessed: 7 March 2019).
- 30.
Monyae and Banda, ‘Sino-South Africa Relations,’ p. 12.
- 31.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 19.
- 32.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 19.
- 33.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 20.
- 34.
Shelton, ‘Hong Kong,’ p. 20.
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Ndzendze, B. (2022). Taiwan: The International Political Economy of the One China Policy. In: The Political Economy of Sino–South African Trade and Regional Competition. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98076-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98076-4_3
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