Tony Leon argues that South Africa’s G20 summit was inflated as a historic diplomatic triumph when it was merely standard international theatre with vague aspirations.
In July 1971, US National Security Advisor Dr Henry Kissinger undertook a top-secret visit to Beijing, breaking more than two decades of Cold War confrontation between America and China.
It was accurately presented as “one of the Cold War’s major diplomatic breakthroughs, opening dialogue between major powers previously locked in ideological confrontation”.
After his groundbreaking trip, Kissinger wrote, “When Premier Zhou Enlai and I agreed on the communique that announced my secret visit, he said, ‘This will shake the world.’” No exaggeration there.
In 1977, half a dozen years later, and in a quest to stop an enduring hot war between two neighbouring powers, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to Jerusalem to end the three decades of conflict with Israel and inaugurate a peace deal that persists today.
In his historic speech to Israel’s parliament (Knesset), Sadat described his visit as “a tremendous turning point, one of the landmarks of a decisive historical change”. Here, too, not hyperbole or inflated rhetoric, but a marker where profound words matched a brave breakout from a diplomatic stalemate.
Casual consumers of SA media this past weekend might be forgiven for imagining that the G20 summit held in Johannesburg was of immense historical significance and a diplomatic triumph.
In the words of the international relations minister, Ronald Lamola: “The G20 Leaders Summit declaration was revolutionary for Africa [and] the Global South.”
Though in reality, performance optics aside, obtaining agreement between nations with irreconcilable interests means, in reality, the publication of a milqeutoast manifesto of lofty aspirations and few implementable action steps. This statement is not, never can be, the sort of breakout moment of international change.
But not to be outbid on the consequences front, leading commentators exalted on a “triumph for multilateralism”, “a cunning masterstroke [by Cyril Ramaphosa]” and “an unprecedented feat of global leadership”. These are just three of many headlines and comments of an almost North Korean level of state veneration.
Still, not to cavil too much: In the angry absence of the world’s most important pantomime villain, US President Donald Trump, his performative posturing to derail a final agreement was rebuffed. Most of the good and the great (and some of the other category too) of the world leadership pitched up. And who knew that the Johannesburg City Council could rise from its institutional torpor and chronic mismanagement and rouse itself to paint the roadsides, repair the potholes and fix the signage (even if the fixing was only on the route between Sandton and Nasrec). Pocket the wins, as the saying goes.
SA played to its strengths
And even if there was a degree of verbal inexactitude in Ramaphosa’s definition of “consensus” that excludes one of the G19 (Argentina) from its embrace, he was far more diplomatic in deferring to such dissenters compared to his “get stuffed” definition of sufficient consensus in his Codesa days. Or indeed in his non-application of the consensus rule in his own government of national unity.
Indeed, the G20 jamboree allowed both South Africa and its president to play to their strengths. Ramaphosa does not need a permission slip from his snarling ANC national executive committee to perform on the international stage.
South Africa as multiple previous global events have proven, from rugby to football to Mandela’s funeral, is expert at showcasing its fabled warmth and hospitality and – for one weekend at least – parking offsite the racial name calling, the high unemployment and the low investment rates and deindustrialisation (not to mention the demise of our industrial smelters) that continue to disfigure our domestic landscape. And whose continuance is assured bar a radical change of policy and political will.
However, for a country and political class often exhibiting extreme forms of status anxiety if not issues of self-esteem (especially when the most powerful leader in the world describes our situation as “horrible” basking in praise from UK PM Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron is a boost.
Though for the boosters themselves and their presence in Johannesburg over the weekend also underlined the dangers for national leaders everywhere, mistaking international summiteering for concrete achievement.
On point, on Saturday (day one of the G20 summit), The Times of London editorialised:
“Embattled leaders commonly use the international stage as a distraction from domestic disharmony. Take Emmanuel Macron: neutered by his near powerlessness in his country’s national assembly, France’s president seeks solace in jetsetting. When authority is draining away at home, diplomatic pomp abroad creates at least the illusion of relevance. Likewise, Sir Keir is doing his bit for global warming. So, far he has spent a sixth of his tenure on foreign trips: 42 in 17 months.”
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Indeed Starmer – who has clocked up more airmiles than even the highest-flying SA Cabinet minister, has been dubbed “Never Here Keir”. Though a deep dive into our president and his cabinet’s foreign wanderlust would also be revealing.
On its own merits, few engaged multilateral players could disagree on the G20 outcomes, hence the achievement of (more or less) consensus carries its own price tag.
Outside of Trumpworld, perhaps, few don’t want “inclusive, sustainable, global growth”. What’s not to like about a “support for the Global South and Africa”. Debt sustainability, accelerated energy transition, and global cooperation would pivot the troubled world in a better direction.
And these are just three topline outcomes of more than 100 points in a 35-page document.
Like chicken soup that is administered to a sick patient, “it might not help, but it can’t harm” even a notional commitment to a better world ends and constructive means to its attainment is a no-brainer.
But what the G20 did not and cannot address is the fact that the very international multilateral architecture designed to build a better world, from the UN to WTO, is broken and “frozen between eras” to borrow a phrase. Fragmented, protectionist and warring is the state of the world right now.
And here at home, after the signage at Nasrec is removed, and after basking in our weekend in the international spotlight, local leaders would do well to remember the wise advice: “All politics is local.”