At the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 22, leaders from 24 nations were expected to be there to converse with Vladimir Putin. This was also the meeting where President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa had stated that they see Russia as an ally. “We continue to see Russia as a valued ally, as a valued friend, who supported us right from the beginning: from the days of our struggle against Apartheid, right through to now.” South Africa has always seemed to have a good relationship with Russia. A good example of this is when Russia had urged to end conflict with Ukraine in 2022, but a year later South Africa had began their “peace mission” for both countries.
I liked this story as well seeing as it also details the relations with a country, though Russia is democratic they still have have aspects of communism in the country, that has a communist party and sided with China over Taiwan. This truly makes me wonder what this means for South Africa. I know the U.S. has good relations with South Africa but I don’t think that the U.S. compares to Russia or even China. South Africa had good relations with Taiwan but then they just cut ties to have good relations with China. So what does that mean for us?
Obviously Russia is more than happy to have an ally, but what about the U.S.? This could caused many confused nad mixed feelings among the U.S. seeing as Donald Trump had a fairly good relations with Vladimir Putin but there are also many citizens that also don’t like Vladimir Putin. Whether or not South Africa likes Russia definitely won’t influence the decision on the U.S.’s opinion on Russia or even Vladimir Putin but seeing as they are all buddy buddy can really stir up some feelings with the U.S.
This relates to what we are talking about in class due to how one has relations with one another. Like how the U.S. doesn’t want to be friends with another country that supports communism. Or how doing something purely for the greater good is just not in the question. I also remember at the beginning of the year we talked about how everyone was rushing to be friends with South Africa for their resources, and China had already had a foot ahead in the game compared to other countries. I truly feel that is happening right now, so I am expecting to see more relations happen with South Africa.