Wake-up call for Global South

DIPLOMAT: LEVERAGING AFRICA-CHINA RELATIONSHIP TO BEAT TRUMP TRADE PROTECTIONISM

- Eric Mthobeli Naki

A senior Ethiopian embassy official in South Africa is raising concern about the Global South's "wait-and-see attitude" and failure to take a stand in the geopolitical turmoil characterised by protectionism and led by US President Donald Trump.

Minister counsellor at the Ethiopian embassy in SA Gujubo Belachew cautioned Global South countries to stand up and work together to confront the situation threatening their own economic and trade survival.

Belachew was among the speakers at the seminar, Governance of China: Forging an All-weather China-Africa Community with a Shared Future in the New Era, in Pretoria on Friday.

Speakers outlined different scenarios of how China-Africa cooperation should take shape in the Trump era and how the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation had defence mechanisms in terms of trade, development and economic relations against US unilateralism.

The strengthening of Africa-China cooperation has become more necessary now in light of Trump's protectionist policies.

Belachew said global trade is not inclusive and is getting deeper into the quagmire of rising trade protectionism and unilateralism in the Western world.

"So, for this reason, the traditional global order is, in one way or another, gasping," he said.