Leadership, global agendas and domestic determinants of South Africa’s foreign policy towards China: the Zuma and Ramaphosa years

This chapter seeks to unpack the interplay between leadership, institutionalization and domestic factors in bilateral relations, and how these dynamics shape South African foreign policy towards China. Efforts to strengthen bilateral ties through the institutionalization of their respective government bureaucracies and concurrent engagement between party elites marked the first part of the decade. However, the growing significance of domestic factors, led by an ailing South African economy and corrupted practices during the Zuma administration, increasingly defined the push and pull of South Africa–China ties, eventually overshadowing even its international dimensions. These dynamics underscore the variety of sources of foreign policy and, against the backdrop of only partial success at institutionalization, the contingent nature of leadership and domestic aspects in defining bilateral ties.