The China factor in IBSA

From 15 October 2007, the Indian government will host the third annual India-Brazil-South-Africa (IBSA) Summit in Delhi. Astonishingly, in the run-up to the summit there has been very little information published on the technical, operational and political engagements of IBSA. This will undoubtedly change over the next few days, especially during and after the summit where there will be more than enough reports circulating around the viability of its outcomes and, more generally, whether IBSA is a durable and realistic trilateral institution strengthening the South-South cooperation.

Since its inception IBSA has been viewed with ambiguity. Some critics see South Africa’s position within the group as misplaced and punching above its weight while others feel that IBSA’s voice on global issues relating to reform and governance of the international system remains marginal without the inclusion of China and Russia.

While the fluidity and shifting geography of power within the international system, the current global financial crisis notwithstanding, will occupy a large chunk of the summit dialogue, considering how China and Russia may strengthen the pulpit of IBSA is myopic.

For some time now the debate on IBSA has been overshadowed by the China factor. Very often discussions regarding IBSA’s future is inextricably aligned to whether or not China joins the alliance or how China’s growing influence in the respective regions of the IBSA countries, across the South and within international politics will affect the objectives of the G3. While China’s global prowess must not be taken lightly, the emphasis placed on China in the IBSA debate is overstated and sometimes unrealistic.

First commentators and analysts fail to recognise that the South is a heterogeneous grouping. By consistently reflecting on IBSA through a China lens assumes that Beijing is the only omnipotent voice of the South.

Second, by assuming that IBSA cannot be legitimate without China not only casts aspersions that the IBSA countries are peripheral actors in the South and more generally the international system but reinforces the perception that the interests of the South are homogenous and unitary.

Third, despite the common normative foreign policy principles that bind China and the IBSA countries, it is not a foregone conclusion that this makes them likely bedfellows. Indeed, presuming that it would be in IBSA’s interests if China were to become part of the trilateral alliance does not mean that Beijing and IBSA can speak with one voice regarding geo-political and/or geo-economic issues relating to the South. The case in point is the Doha Development Round.

What the above illustrates is that IBSA should be viewed as one of the many institutions aimed at harnessing South-South co-operation. From this perspective IBSA has demonstrated its resolve as an important structure from the South in reforming the international order and pursuing a more equitable global system, while on the other hand it has shown that South-South cooperation is possible even without the big C. On both fronts IBSA illustrates that the diffuse nature of the South does not always mean that China has to be included in all institutions in order to give such frameworks legitimacy.

It will be better served if IBSA is seen on the merits of three like-minded democratic states unifying their broad national and international interests in pushing for greater South-South collaboration. At this juncture putting the China factor into IBSA is premature and at times parochial because it assumes that China is the only player in the South that can promote such leverage.

As the third IBSA Summit takes place, it is important for analysts to ask how the China factor may reorder the goals of the IBSA trilateral, but this is more a long-term consideration. For the moment China is comfortable in its current posturing to be part of other groupings of the South like the India-China-Russia troika and the Shanghai Cooperation (which incidentally Beijing initiated) and how these further entrench its South-South engagements.

Perhaps it is more useful to ask whether it is in China’s interests to join IBSA and not whether it is in IBSA’s interests for China to join. Indeed, the muted presence of China in Asia and Latin America will raise some significant issues for the IBSA trilateral, but for now we must be circumspect in assuming that China wants to join IBSA or for that matter IBSA wants it to join.

If IBSA is to succeed in becoming a realistic and viable building bloc in augmenting South-South cooperation it will be better poised in recognising that the South is a heterogeneous group with competing interests and that not all of its institutions must include the China factor.

For now, let’s assess IBSA as part of an overall effort to gradually reinforce the spirit of Bandung and integration of the South into the international system.

* Sanusha Naidu is research director of the China in Africa programme based at Fahamu, Cape Town. This article reflects her personal views. She can be contacted at [email][email protected]
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