Red Alert: The People's Republic of China: an opportunity for relative delinking from imperialism? Reflections from Beijing
Each time one visits China one either discovers new things or come back with new reflections. Hundreds of SACP cadres have visited China especially over the last 25 years. I visited the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for the first time in 1991 in an SACP delegation led then by the now late Raymond Mhlaba, Oom Ray, former National Chairperson of our party. Similarly the ANC has sent many delegations to the PRC over the same period.
This past week I was part of a government delegation to the PRC led by Deputy President, Cde Cyril Ramaphosa. It was by all accounts a very successful mission, especially the Beijing leg of the visit, of which I was part. This visit focused on building upon areas of agreement on co-operation reached between Presidents Zuma and Xi Jinpin during the former's last state visit to China last year.
Amongst the areas of focus and exchange were the training of public servants, with a possible co-operation between the Chinese Academy of Governance and our National School of Government. In addition, our delegation held a very informative joint seminar with the Chinese on the role of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the Chinese economy.
The main meeting between Vice-President Li and Cde Ramaphosa covered a number of very important areas of co-operation, with a particular focus on implementation on those areas beyond just what is contained in the comprehensive strategic relationship between our two countries. Cde Li pointed out concrete ways of co-operation in supporting South Africa's industrialisation strategy, including in the areas of infrastructure development, energy, as well as human resources development.
As I was participating in these meetings I was quietly thinking that, against the backdrop of the launch of the New Development Bank (Brics Bank) established under the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) global co-operation, and the potential mutual benefits from this Sino-South Africa relations, this is one of the major reasons why President Zuma is such an object of hate by local media and some of its business and imperialist backers.