Modern Mining October 2023

COLUMNIST

Russia, for if the country chooses to import oil from Iranian or Russian sources that are under extensive US sanctions – and that for arguably good rea son – then we further jeopardise our international standing among the G7. That is not sensible. It is more sensible to forge serious partnerships with G7 countries and other middle-income countries such as Argentina, Brazil (which are both now at least in the BRICS+ group) and Chile, with simi lar structural challenges to ours, but at least with shared values. Ultimately, BRICS+6 seems to have a fundamental problem, well-articulated by Jim O’Neill: “ever since the Brazilian and Russian foreign ministers proposed the idea of creating a formal BRIC political grouping in 2009, I have questioned the organization’s pur pose, beyond serving as a symbolic gesture. Now that the BRICS has announced that it will add six more countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – I pose the question again. The decision, after all, does not appear to have been decided on any clear objective, much less economic, criteria.” South Africa should engage in this new part nership with a clear-eyed strategic sense of its limitations and try to steer the bloc in the direction of calling for a revived G20. 

conditions that support these values, economies can only benefit a narrow elite. From a geostrategic perspective, it therefore makes little sense to partner with countries like these. South Africa’s geostrategic objectives should be informed by our constitutional values and our national interest should be defined in terms of opti mising our natural resource endowment to catalyse broad-based development. Within the BRICS+6, there are countries – like China – that still require significant raw materials from African countries like ours to power their economies. Our government’s fraternising so heavily with China raises the risk that Chinese firms will increas ingly gain access to these resources – chrome, manganese, iron ore – over its competitors (the EU and the US in particular). That is a risk because Chinese firms are not constrained by the same kind of rules of the game that US or London-listed com panies are. By design and definition, then, Chinese firms are less likely to take their environmental and social responsibility seriously in the process of resource extraction. South Africa must guard against the temptations associated with quick extraction by irresponsible partners. Moreover, it is unlikely to gain from part nerships with players like Saudia Arabia, Iran and

42  MODERN MINING  October 2023