The Political Economy of Sino-South African Trade in the Context of Asia-Pacific Regional Competition

Abstract

In The Political Economy of Sino-South African Trade in the Context of Asia-Pacific Regional Competition, the author intends to comparatively examine the China-South Africa trade relationship over the twenty-year 1998-2018 period through the prism of four other relationships South Africa has with countries China’s contentious neighbours in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific (or Indo-Pacific). The
different case studies presented in the book (Taiwan, Japan, India, and the United States) highlighted a ‘differentiated engagement’ between Pretoria and Beijing. Importantly, it reports the countries’ relations with China, ranging from ambivalent at best to adversarial at worst. At the same time, these countries also aimed to increase trade relations with post-Apartheid South Africa, sometimes at China’s marginal expense, since 1998 (when Pretoria formed diplomatic ties with Beijing to Taiwan’s exclusion).