Who should write our foreign policy?
Jon Huntsman is one of those political oddities: a Republican with distinct Democrat tendencies, which means the more conservative Republicans don’t like him very much. He, along with seven other contenders, is vying for the GOP (the Grand old Party as the Republicans are called) nominatio as presidential candidate to contest the American presidential election next year.Whoever eventually wins will go to battle against incumbent Barack Obama, who – depending upon which side of the political fence you sit – will either sail home, or be soundly defeated.
Huntsman, along with his seven competitors, is hectically involved in the hustings, criss-crossing the nation in a bid to drum up support from a Republican electorate that put George W Bush in the Oval Office for two consecutive terms, the impact of which is still reverberating through virtually every aspect of American life.
Listening to him debate the issues on national television is a thought-provoking experience, largely because he speaks with conviction, and much of what he says makes sense, particularly in the foreign policy arena. The same can’t be said for pretty much all of his opponents.
To say that he is direct and forthright would be an understatement: he ruthlessly cut an opponent off at the knees in a televised debate. Whereas his opponents are largely inclined to articulate foreign policy which is almost fearful of China (America’s largest trading partner), he holds the opposite view. Rather than asking “what will China say?” when formulating foreign policy, he reckons the question should be “what’s in the best interests of the US?” If it happens to accommodate China at the same time, then that’s a bonus. He formulates his views from a solid platform of experience: he was Barack Obama’s ambassador to China from August 2009 to April 2011.
And it is this fearful notion that we ought to avoid at all costs annoying China, that bedevils most every aspect of our own foreign policy agenda.
Granted, we are now a member of BRICSA (the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa political accord), but membership should not imply automatic subservience to our much larger co-members. On the contrary. BRICSA is a convocation of equals, a loose forum of common interests among a group of nations that are marked more by their differences than their similarities.
While \[orielle.berry\]st South Africa ought not to expect that it can dictate foreign policy to the other BRICSA countries, reciprocally, it should be free of coercion.
But that is of course a chimera, as we saw recently in South Africa’s disgraceful prevarication over the Dalai Lama’s visa. And it wasn’t just that the visa was not granted, it was the blatant obfuscation over the issue by the ANC, the presidency and the departments of international relations and co-operation, and home affairs.
Rather than simply coming out and saying that a visa would not be granted because to do so would annoy China, the buck was passed around like an unidentified parcel in a Belfast pub, until the Dalai Lama withdrew his visa application.
Sunday saw the kick-off of COP17 (17th Conference of the Parties) in Durban, and already speculation is rife about the stance South Africa will take in pursuit of a binding agreement that will result in meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, not only by the developed nations, but also by developing nations like China and South Africa, both of which are amongst the biggest offenders.
The chance of a binding agreement to reduce emissions is unlikely, and just like it did at COP16 last year, South Africa will side once more with the developing countries, China in particular, because it is just too scared not to.
Would that we had a Jon Hunstman rather than a Jacob Zuma.
Written by Norman McFarlane You are reading Who should write our foreign policy? articles
