Might South Africa Invite Macron To This Year’s BRICS Summit So Putin Boycotts In Protest?

If South Africa is unable to promise that it won’t execute the ICC’s politicized arrest warrant, then its policymakers might gamble that it’s better to invite Macron after Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister just condemned that scenario as “unacceptable” in order to provoke President Putin into boycotting the summit in protest, which could cause such a scandal that the aforesaid warrant’s role in all this is forgotten.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov didn’t mince words on Thursday when addressing the scenario of South Africa inviting French President Emmanuel Macron as its guest at this year’s summit:

“We have sent a signal that, with all due respect to the prerogatives of [South Africa as] the host to invite individual guests, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that BRICS is an alliance of countries that categorically rejects the use of unilateral sanctions for resolving foreign policy issues. Given this, the presence of Western officials would clearly be inappropriate there.”

 “There Are Reasons To Be Skeptical Of Macron’s Reported Intention To Attend The BRICS Summit”, which can be learned about more in the preceding hyperlinked analysis.

In short, the fierce Russian-French proxy war in Africa over the continent’s role in the emerging world order precludes any realistic chance of Paris respecting Moscow’s interests in multilateral fora. Macron would almost certainly attempt to weaponize his appearance at this year’s summit in whatever way his country’s strategists envisage as most effectively giving France an edge over Russia in this competition. That doesn’t mean that it’ll succeed, of course, but it would still toxify this upcoming multipolar event.

Ryabkov felt that he had to speak out to let the world know Russia’s official stance on this issue after South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor didn’t immediately rule it out after recent talks with her French counterpart where this request was informally made. Unofficial media reports would already have tipped Pretoria off about this possibility and thus given it enough time to formulate a response, which is why Moscow seemingly regarded its silence afterwards as suspicious.

As the Deputy Foreign Minister said, his side already sent the signal that Macron’s appearance would be inappropriate due to France’s imposition of sanctions against Russia. By going public with these concerns, he hopes to place “positive pressure” on this year’s host to consider popular opinion across the Global South and especially in Africa, which is largely aligned with Russia on this issue. Ryabkov wants South Africa to know that inviting Macron would be widely frowned upon by many of its friends.   

After all, the signal that would be sent is that Pretoria prioritizes its relations with Paris over those with fellow member Moscow, the latter of which would rightly regard his appearances as a slap in the face to President Putin. It’s difficult to imagine the Russian leader personally participating in the upcoming summit after that happens, though it might be precisely because of the possibility that he’d boycott the event in protest of Macron’s invitation that South Africa might ultimately end up extending it.

To explain, South Africa is under immense Western pressure to arrest President Putin in response to the International Criminal Court’s politicized warrant, and it’s yet to confirm that a workaround has been reached for going against its obligation to that group. It’s therefore already uncertain whether he’ll show up or not, but if Pretoria is unable to promise that nothing will happen to him, then it might gamble that it’s better to invite Macron in order to provoke President Putin into boycotting the event.

This doesn’t mean that Russia won’t participate at all, but just that its leader might not feel comfortable attending in that case, especially if no promises had been made about his personal safety. In order to keep up appearances on all sides, however, neither Russia nor South Africa might draw attention to that last-mentioned possible observation but could instead focus on the scandal over Macron’s invitation. This could help both “save face” by downplaying the influence of the politicized arrest warrant.

Just like Kazakhstan unexpectedly decided to stop hosting talks on Syria in what was analyzed here to be a response to Western sanctions pressure, so too might South Africa unexpectedly invite Macron to this year’s BRICS summit for the same reason related to relieving pressure but also reaping rewards too. Regarding the stick approach, both could be punished by the West’s secondary sanctions, which Bloomberg recently reported could lead to South Africa losing $32 billion in exports or 10% of its GDP.

As for the carrot that could entice those two to distance themselves from Russia, Astana and Pretoria could both receive some of the G7’s promised $600 billion in infrastructure funding for non-Western countries, the latter’s conditional on President Putin not visiting. If South Africa assessed this approach as credible, then it might prefer to sacrifice ties with Russia and the soft power that they’re associated with across the Global South out of desperation to prevent the West from crushing its economy.

Perceptions could be managed across the non-West in that case as evidenced by leading Chinese media’s endorsement of Macron’s potential attendance at this year’s summit. Global Times’ and China Daily’s editorials in support of this scenario shouldn’t automatically be equated with their state patron’s official policy, which has yet to comment, but they can at the very least be interpreted as being approved for discussion’s sake. This observation suggests that China and Russia disagree on this sensitive issue.

It's natural for countries to have different views, including the two pillars of the Sino-Russo Entente, since they already disagree on the Kashmir Conflict and the South China Sea as explained here. In this context, China wants to strengthen strategic ties with France since it sees Paris as a reliable partner for leading the EU’s resistance to any possibly forthcoming US sanctions demands against the People’s Republic. As for Russia’s stance, it was earlier explained regarding the proxy war in Africa and sanctions.

Returning to South Africa’s dilemma, it might invite Macron to this year’s summit after feeling comfortable enough that China will cushion the blow to its soft power across the Global South, thus possibly provoking President Putin into boycotting the event in protest. Even if the Russian leader still attends, then it can’t be taken for granted that Western sanctions will be imposed since Macron would be able to steal the show, especially if he disrespects President Putin to his face in a way that goes viral.  

Imposing sanctions could also ultimately be counterproductive too since there’s always the chance that China could scale up its imports of South Africa’s products and services in order to replace the West’s lost role, thus dealing a self-inflicted deathblow to that de facto New Cold War bloc’s influence there. China would prefer for none of its partners to be sanctioned, and plus it wants to strengthen strategic ties with France too, which helps explain why two of its leading media want Macron to attend the event.

South Africa needs to think long and hard about its envisaged role in the global systemic transition, particularly whether it’s ready to sacrifice its hard-earned reputation, sovereignty, and ties with Russia simply out of desperation to prevent the West from crushing its economy, which might not even happen. Inviting Macron has its pros as argued by leading Chinese media, but it would be a slap in the face to President Putin and break BRICS’ anti-sanctions solidarity, which is why it ideally shouldn’t happen.