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11. BRICS STUDENTS EDUCATION IN CHINA FROM 2010 TO 2018: DEVELOPMENT, PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Author:
Cheng Jing
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Institution:
Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Abstract:
Attracting international students is an important way to promote the internationalization of one country’s higher education, and to enhance youth and education exchanges between countries. As the biggest developing country in world, China has attachedimportance to the international students education in China since 2010 so as to improve the quality of China’s higher education and promote its internationalization. What’s striking is that in September of 2010, for the first time, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of Chinafrom the perspective of national strategymapped out a plan targeting the international students educationin China, and releasedStudy in China Program, which was designed to “promote the communication and cooperation between China and other countries in education, promptthe sustainable and healthy development of the international students education in China and improve the internationalization of Chineseeducation”. This program highlightedthat China would“accelerate the quota of scholarship step by step in accordance with the need of national strategy and development”, with the targets of attracting 500,000 international students by 2020 and “making China the top destination country in Asia for international students”（China’s Ministry of Education, 2010:647).
Topic:
Education, International Political Economy, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, South Africa, and Brazil

12. Four Conflict Prevention Opportunities for South Africa’s Foreign Policy

Author:
International Crisis Group
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
In the years right after apartheid fell, South Africa was a leader in continental diplomacy, brokering peace accords and bolstering multilateral institutions. Its role subsequently diminished, but today it is well placed to make a positive difference in several trouble spots. What’s new? Midway through its term on the UN Security Council, and having just become chair of the African Union, the South African government led by Cyril Ramaphosa has a strong platform from which to reassert Pretoria’s continental leadership in efforts to mitigate Africa’s violent conflicts. Why does it matter? As Africa deals with more challenges to regional stability than it can readily handle, South Africa’s re-emergence as a leader in conflict prevention would be good for Pretoria, good for a continent that continues to prefer African solutions to African problems and good for the people of conflict-affected areas. What should be done? South Africa should enhance its focus on Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, which lie at the intersection of national, AU and UN priorities. Pretoria should also redouble efforts to steer neighbouring Zimbabwe away from crisis.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Negotiation
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, and Democratic Republic of Congo

13. I Need You, I Don’t Need You: South Africa and Inga III

Author:
CIC Congo Research Group
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
A new report from CIC’s Congo Research Group and Phuzumoya Consulting, I Need You, I Don’t Need You: South Africa and Inga III, places South Africa’s backing of Inga III in the context of its foreign policy. The report argues that South Africa’s current Inga policy is contradictory, oscillating between the desire to project an image of being a pan-Africanist power promoting the continent’s economic development, and the reality that committing to the project makes little financial or energy policy sense. A power purchasing agreement from South Africa is critical for the dam’s construction—but buying electricity from Inga III will be risky for South Africa, especially since it may end up being expensive than other sources. The resulting uncertainty about whether South Africa will ever really be an anchor client for Inga III thus puts into question the bankability—and indeed the feasibility—of the whole project.
Topic:
Energy Policy and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, and Congo

14. Post-workshop Briefing Paper: Preventing a COVID-19 Crisis in Africa

Author:
Atif Choudhury, Yawei Liu, and Ian Pilcher
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
In May 2020, the Carter Center’s China Program partnered with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) and the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) to organize a virtual workshop on Africa-U.S.-China cooperation on COVID-19 response. The workshop brought together a range of experts from the U.S, China, Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya, and South Africa to discuss the public health impact and wider policy implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the African continent. Emory University’s Global Health Institute and The Hunger Project also helped identify speakers and moderate panels.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, United States, China, Asia, South Africa, North America, Ethiopia, and Burundi

15. African Union: Mbeki’s South Africa Policy for Africa

Author:
Luiza Bizzo Affonso and Vitor Ferreira Lengruber
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Marked by tragedies that reinforce stereotypes about itself, especially those that portray it as dependent on developed countries and unable to solve its own dilemmas, the African continent still presents itself in the 21st century with challenges related to hunger and humanitarian calamities, more recurrent in some regions than others. The initiatives to deal with theses issues arise right at the beginning of the second millennium primarily from South Africa. In this sense, it is possible to ask the following question: what political and economic measures were adopted by the African continent in order to combat these problems? Based on the bibliographic review of qualitative secondary sources relevant to the theme and on the analysis of primary sources, such as speeches and official documents of the Organization of African Unity, the purpose of this article is to demonstrate changes in the political and economic dynamics. Those changes were materialized in the different principles incorporated by the Organization of African Unity (1963) and the African Union (2001), the two main organizations for political, economic and social cooperation at the continental level, which took place in Africa at the beginning of the 21st century. The specific objective of this article is to present the change of guidelines, politically and economically, adopted by the African Union at the time of the transition to the new millennium and the role of South Africa, during the administration of Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008) during the process. The historical period being analysed, therefore, dates from the mid-1990s to the end of Mbeki’s presidential term in September 2008.
Topic:
Development, Regional Cooperation, Economic growth, Regional Integration, and African Union
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, and Brazil

16. Educational Interventions to Address Gender-Based Violence

Author:
SVRI
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
Education is central to efforts to prevent gender-based violence (GBV). However, while education can be used to prevent GBV, school-related GBV affects millions of children, families and communities. It involves acts or threats of sexual, physical or psychological violence occurring in and around schools, perpetrated because of gender norms and stereotypes, and enforced by unequal power dynamics.
Topic:
Education, Gender Based Violence, Youth, Sexual Violence, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Moldova, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, Jordan, Swaziland, Papua New Guinea, and United States of America

17. South Africa’s Changing Role in Global Development Structures – Being in Them but Not Always of Them

Author:
Elizabeth Sidiropoulos
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Development Institute (DIE)
Abstract:
South Africa’s engagement in global development structures has evolved since 1994, when the country re-entered the international community. The historical philosophical underpinnings of the African National Congress, the governing party, aimed to reaffirm the country’s place in the Global South and African firmament after the end of apartheid. This understanding is necessary in the context of South Africa’s priorities over the past 25 years, not least in the development debates. The last two decades have seen significant attempts to develop global norms that tackle the serious developmental challenges faced by developing countries. The paper explores these initiatives and divides them into three streams – those undertaken by the United Nations, those begun by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD-DAC), and those that may be understood as part of club governance processes (such as the G20, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA). South Africa’s engagement in these global development structures is analysed, along with its contribution to the evolution of African agency on the issues of global development. South Africa has strongly criticised existing power relations while undertaking strategic engagements with the North, centred on the vision of an African renaissance and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development initiative. The country has consistently argued that Northern aid cannot be put on the same platform as South-South Cooperation as they have different origins. Other African states and continental institutions have also ramped up their engagement on global development and development cooperation in recent years, which the paper also explores. While South Africa has always identified Africa as a core pillar of its foreign policy, its interests have not always cohered with those of the rest of the continent. Lastly, the paper explores possible avenues that South Africa might pursue in the current polarised multilateral environment. Its biggest challenge is the tension regarding its Global South identity, which has to balance its commitment to African issues and institutional processes, and its positioning via its membership of the BRICS as an emerging power that seeks to contest the current global power configurations.
Topic:
Development, United Nations, Multilateralism, and Economic Development
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

18. Governing Digital Trade – A New Role for the WTO

Author:
Wallace Cheng and Clara Brandi
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Development Institute (DIE)
Abstract:
Digitalisation is transforming the economy and redefining trade. Recently, members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have started to discuss how trade policies and rules should be adapted to address this transformation. For example, in January 2019, 76 WTO members announced the launch of “negotiations on trade-related aspects of electronic commerce”. The scope of these e-commerce negotiations is yet to be defined, but to ban tariffs on electronic trans­missions will certainly be on the priority list of WTO members such as the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). The idea of banning tariffs on electronic transmission originated at the WTO’s Ministerial Conference (MC) in 1998, when Members declared that they would “continue their current practice of not imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions”. This temporary moratorium on e-commerce tariffs needs to be regularly extended, requiring a decision made “by consensus”. Members have repeatedly extended the moratorium on tariffs on “electronic trans­missions”, most recently at the latest WTO MC in 2017. But the WTO e-commerce moratorium is increasingly disputed: First, while net exporters of digital products and services, typically industrialised countries, understand the tariff ban to apply to digital content, net importers interpret it as referring only to electronic carriers (e.g. CDs, electronic bits), which means that they regard themselves as permitted to impose customs duties on the content of online trade. Second, while net exporters like the US and the EU propose a permanent ban on e-commerce tariffs in order to provide greater certainty to consumers and business, arguing that the resulting revenue losses are small, net importers like India and South Africa underline that they suffer much greater revenue losses than industrialised countries and have to bear the brunt of the moratorium. Third, while industrialised countries argue that the ban on tariffs on electronic transmissions would reduce market distortions, developing countries are concerned that a permanent moratorium would limit their options to protect domestic products and services traded online. Fourth, the moratorium has stirred a debate about how to create a level playing field between domestic and foreign suppliers of digital products and services.
Topic:
Development, Science and Technology, World Trade Organization, and Digital Economy
Political Geography:
India, South Africa, United States of America, and European Union

19. Nuclear Enrichment: Russia’s Ill-Fated Influence Campaign in South Africa

Author:
Andrew Weiss and Eugene Rumer
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Amid the widespread attention the Kremlin’s recent inroads in Africa have attracted, there has been surprisingly little discussion of South Africa, a country which, for nearly a decade, unquestionably represented Russia’s biggest foreign policy success story on the continent. As relations soared during the ill-starred presidency of Jacob Zuma (2009–2018), the Kremlin sought to wrest a geopolitically significant state out of the West’s orbit and to create a partnership that could serve as a springboard for expanded influence elsewhere in Africa. Moscow’s strategy was multifaceted, capitalizing on well-established close ties with Zuma, a former African National Congress senior intelligence official with extensive Soviet bloc connections. Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials pursued a series of initiatives, such as the inclusion of South Africa in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) grouping and the launch of ambitious forms of cooperation between state-backed energy interests primarily in the nuclear sector. Yet relations were undermined by the Kremlin’s propensity to overreach, to lean too heavily on the legacy of Cold War–era relationships forged with leaders of national liberation movements, and to take advantage of cultures of corruption. The controversy arising from a massive $76 billion nuclear power plant construction deal triggered strong pushback and legal challenges from South Africa’s institutional checks and balances, civil society groups, and independent media. Key parts of the Russian national security establishment view civil nuclear power exports as an important tool for projecting influence overseas while creating revenue streams for sustaining intellectual and technical capabilities and vital programs inside Russia itself. Yet such cooperation is often a two-edged sword. On the one hand, costly projects such as the one pushed by Zuma typically make little economic sense for the purchasing country, spurring uncomfortable questions about who stands to benefit. On the other hand, heavily subsidized projects pursued mainly for geopolitical reasons risk saddling Russia’s nuclear power monopoly Rosatom with burdens it can ill afford. Ongoing investigations of high-level corruption during the period of so-called state capture under Zuma shed remarkable light on how the Kremlin operates in Africa and other parts of the world. In retrospect, the sustainability of Moscow’s embrace of South Africa was highly questionable due to its paltry tool kit. Russian involvement in the South African economy is miniscule compared to that of other trading partners such as the EU, China, the United States, India, and the UK, accounting for a mere 0.4 percent of South Africa’s foreign trade. While the Soviet Union was an important patron during the anti-apartheid struggle, modern-day Russia offers little in the way of practical assistance for helping South Africa deal with its deep-set economic and societal challenges.
Topic:
Energy Policy, National Security, Geopolitics, and Nuclear Waste
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, and South Africa

20. Improving the Role of Intelligence in Counterproliferation Policymaking: Report of the "Speaking Truth to Nonproliferation Project," 2018

Author:
Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
This report is the culmination of a two-year project sponsored by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, which engaged more than 50 senior, retired and serving policymakers, intelligence officers, and top academic national security analysts. Its findings are based on hours of group discussions and private conversations that helped develop new primary histories of eight nuclear proliferation cases: India, Pakistan, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Libya, and an Argentine and a separate South African nuclear rocket case. Each history was prepared by an academic historian and was based on open sources. Former officials who had direct roles in these cases then critiqued these accounts. Additional private interviews were conducted with participants to fill in historical gaps. The purpose of the case studies was to identify when and how intelligence shaped or prompted nonproliferation policy actions and, if it did not, why. This set of historical conclusions prompted a more general discussion of how policy and intelligence officials might improve their collaboration to prevent and curb further nuclear proliferation and how academics might contribute by enhancing their treatment of such issues. The project addressed three broad, related questions: How can the role of intelligencein the making of nonproliferation policy be improved? How can the nonproliferation agenda get the priority it deserves? How can the nonproliferation community be sustained and strengthened?
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, History, Nuclear Power, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Africa, South Asia, Middle East, India, Israel, Taiwan, Asia, South Korea, Libya, South Africa, Argentina, South America, and North Africa