BY MBONO MDLULI
LOBAMBA – What can happen to Eswatini’s relations, especially with Taiwan, if the country joins the BRICS economic bloc?
This is a question that was raised by Mbabane East Member of Parliament (MP) Welcome Dlamini today during the 2023/24 performance debate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, which took place in the House of Assembly. Dlamini asked this question because many Emaswati have been asking the same, since this economic bloc gained momentum, especially last year in August when this group of countries hosted its summit in South Africa.
Dlamini asked this question because among the BRICS countries was Mainland China, which was not in good relations with Taiwan. On the other hand, Eswatini act of joining BRICS could be seen as a betrayal to Taiwan’s friendship with Eswatini.
Dlamini said Eswatini had a foreign policy of not having enemies. It is worth noting that the country’s foreign policy was something that could prompt it to join BRICS, especially because the country had good diplomatic relations with South Africa, on top of the two countries being neighbours.
The Mbabane East MP wanted to know if the country was considering joining BRICS. He also wanted to know if joining BRICS was not going to irk Taiwan, a country that had been Eswatini’s development partner for 55 years now.
Ntfonjeni MP Raymond Dlamini, Lugongolweni MP Joseph Souza, and Sigwe MP David ‘Cruiser’ Ngcamphalala stated in no uncertain terms that Taiwan needed to be supported by Eswatini because of the forms of assistance the Asian country had been giving to Eswatini over the years. Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Pholile Shakantu promised to respond in writing.
BRICS is a group of countries consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. This group has been seen as one that wants to take over in terms of influencing the international economic affairs, challenging the United States of America (USA) and its allies, especially within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) group.
The intergovernmental organisation welcomed four other countries into the group and these countries include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in January this year. It was supposed to welcome six of these countries, including Argentina and Saudi Arabia. However, Argentina ended up withdrawing its application to join and Saudi Arabia has still not decided whether to join or not.
Many other countries, including African countries such as Zimbabwe and Nigeria are said to have applied to join this organisation.
