Fine act to win friends

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa’s engagements in the past few days – as well as his forthcoming meetings – speak to the changes that are taking place with regards to our foreign policy.

Under Nelson Mandela, South Africa was a global player. Under Thabo Mbeki our focus was Africa. The Jacob Zuma presidency was different.

It was under Zuma that South Africa became a member of the then-BRIC grouping – Brazil, Russia, India and China – turning it into BRICS.

While our relationship with China and Russia blossomed, we became increasingly isolated from other countries.

Ramaphosa clearly wants to be friends with everyone. Over the weekend he visited Harare to watch as Emmerson Mnangagwa was sworn in as the president of Zimbabwe.

The elections, which were held a month ago, brought legitimacy to the government after Robert Mugabe was ousted last year.

For Ramaphosa it was important to show solidarity with the head of a neighbouring state and to illustrate his commitment to the rest of the continent.

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May visited our country. It is noteworthy because it had been seven years since a sitting UK prime minister visited our shores.

Ramaphosa has already visited the UK. He did so earlier this year and secured a deal of more than R800 million to help boost our economy. He spent time with May and also visited Queen Elizabeth II.

Next week our president will travel to Beijing, China, for a state visit. It comes after Ramaphosa hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping during the BRICS summit a few weeks ago.

While in Beijing, Ramaphosa will co-chair a meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation.

It is a partnership China has with about 50 African countries and the theme of the summit will be “China and Africa: toward an even stronger community with a shared future through win-win co-operation”.

It illustrates the growing influence China has on our continent and why this is a relationship Ramaphosa needs to nurture.

There is nothing wrong with Ramaphosa wanting to be friends with the world. In fact, we need whatever help we can get to kickstart our economy.

However, Ramaphosa needs to balance winning friends overseas with winning over support in his own party.

He is the first ANC leader since democracy to win power by such a small margin, and as a result should remember that winning over comrades from other ANC factions is as important as winning friends abroad.