No abstract

South Africa's putative status in Africa as a regional and sub-regional hegemonic power is sometimes viewed from the prism of its exceptionalism and Afro-modernity. The study on which this article is based analyzed secondary data from print and electronic media to argue that although South Africa has shown mixed behavior in its foreign policy in Africa, neo-imperialism is not the most appropriate mode to conceptualize it. Contrary to the arguments of some studies that have unjustifiably placed South Africa's continental diplomacy in Africa within the orbit of neoimperialism or sub-imperialism, this paper argues that South African diplomacy in Africa is also captured within the orbit of its constitutional democracy. We argue that South Africa has collaborated with international capital to create unequal exchange between it and Africa. South Africa's African Renaissance rhetoric appears more of a response to the world economic order it found itself in at the end of apartheid than the purported African revival it projects.

While there have been scholarly studies that address Nigeria’s diplomacy and contribution to the African Union (AU), many of them have failed to compare and contrast how those have added to the socio-economic development of Nigeria. We encountered a few instances where attempts were made to explain such, yet a fully-fledged analysis lacked in their conclusions. We applied documentary analysis methodology in our review and found that there is a serious misalignment between Nigeria’s diplomacy and support for the African Union on one hand and positive socio-economic development in Nigeria on the other. The study also looks at exploring how the general framework of Nigeria’s foreign policy goals and strategies in Africa can serve both its national interest and the overall development goals of Africa. We argue that for Nigeria’s role in the AU to be meaningful, the country needs to simultaneously revive its internal socio-economic condition.

South Africa and Nigeria are both regarded as regional 'giants' having real or perceived capacity to play strategic roles in Africa's political-economic settings. On one hand, South Africa's dominance in Africa's political-economic transformation since 1994 is reflected mostly in its business expansion in Africa. Nigeria, on the other hand, remains significant having only just been upstaged by South Africa as Africa's largest economy, and with the huge market its population provides for investors. Notwithstanding intermittent diplomatic altercations between both countries, there has been rising trade and investment relations between the two regional powers especially since the post-apartheid era. However, this is tilted in favour of South Africa because of its more capitalized economy and significant strength in trade investment in Africa. This skewed economic relationship between both regional powers has given South Africa a major trade and investment advantage over Nigeria which also reflects in the recurring political rivalry between both countries. The authors stress that South Africa's economic incursion and dominance in the continent furthers a growing perception of its regional hegemonic and sub-imperial power aspirations which is becoming more real than imagined.

Globalization has forced many countries to rely on one another for products and services which they are unable to source locally. More so, trade is used as the channel to procure those. South Africa and China share very close relations which are boosted by South Africa’s neo-liberal policy, and its membership of the BRICS bloc. Often, this relationship has been subjected to different interpretations leading to the inability to reach a consensus on South Africa’s intention and exact benefits from neo-liberalization and membership of BRICS bloc. On this basis, we affirm that a notable gap exists in scholarly literature which has not provided the full-fledged understanding of the impact of Chinese manufactured goods into South Africa. We draw from the concepts of protectionism and free trade to expatiate the concerns raised by many with respect to the nature and benefits of the relationship. The paper relied extensively on secondary sources of data from which the authors then analyzed, interpreted and drew conclusions to provide a contextual explanation of the phenomenon of Chinese invasion of South African market. This method was useful for two reasons; namely its capacity to generate new insights and secondly, access to comparative studies. While the results show that South African clothing firms are increasingly shutting down because of lower prices from international competitors (especially China), and also due to structural issues of the present South African economy, we are equally aware of the extensive pressure from interest groups for the South African government to protect major local industries such as steel and textile. We argue anyway that the South African government is playing its cards carefully to avoid a backlash, especially considering its position within the BRICS bloc.