On Friday, President Biden will host President Ramaphosa at the White House. The meeting was intended to reaffirm the importance of the strategic partnership between South Africa and the United States. It came after a meeting between Secretary of State Blinken and President Ramaphosa on the sidelines of the US-South Africa Strategic Dialogue last month. There, Secretary of State Blinken stated that the United States government would continue to invest in this “strong, dynamic, and mutually beneficial partnership.” The statement followed a phone call between President Biden and President Ramaphosa after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the time, President Biden stressed the need for a clear and unified international response to the incident given its potential impact on regional and global security interests. His request seemed to fall on deaf ears. The Ramaphosa administration rejected calls to “engage in the politics of confrontation and aggression that the powerful powers have advocated.” Instead, South Africa treaded a non-aligned path and advocated a negotiated settlement, much to the chagrin of many Western governments.
More than five months later, great power competition remains one of the most significant issues for the strategic partnership between South Africa and the United States. The Biden and Ramaphosa administrations are not only struggling to identify mutually acceptable ways to address the global security challenges arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the distinct threats from China’s invasion of Taiwan. Finding mutually acceptable solutions to the many regional and national security challenges posed by great power competition on the African continent has become a real challenge. To be clear, the Biden Administration is not solely responsible for this diplomatic fiasco. However, the United States government must do more than just recognize South Africa as a “major geopolitical power” to resolve this impasse. A good start would be to engage our South African counterparts “as equal partners” and be willing and able to ‘speak frankly’ more often. Without such pragmatic changes, the Biden and Ramaphosa Administrations will continue to have difficulty identifying mutually acceptable ways to address the national, regional and global security challenges posed by great power competition around the world, much to the delight of China and Russia. .
Michael Walsh was chair of the Asia-Pacific Security Affairs Subcommittee at the Biden Defense Working Group during the 2020 US Presidential Campaign.
Phiwokuhle Mnyandu is a lecturer in the Department of African Studies and World Languages at Howard University.
***Correction was made to change “Thursday” to “Friday” in the first sentence, because the actual meeting took place on Friday.***
