Africa-Press – South-Africa. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, introduced as “comrade” by the Chinese embassy on Friday, said his party supported an end to Western sanctions against Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Cuba.
On Friday, at the Chinese embassy in Tshwane, Mbalula was joined by the ANC’s second deputy secretary-general, Maropene Ramokgopa, who is also a minister in the Presidency, as a show of the governing party’s support ahead of China President Xi Jinping’s state visit with President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday.
The visit comes days before the start of the BRICS summit that is scheduled to run from Tuesday to Thursday at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.
Mbalula and Ramokgopa were at the embassy as guests of China Ambassador Chen Xiaodong, who said South Africa and China had “strong mutual respect and trust” on the “political front”.
“We closely communicate and coordinate with each other in international affairs,” Xiaodong added.
Mbalula said the ANC, together with the Chinese Communist Party, was part of the “non-aligned movement; we are also part of the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial forces”.
“Our participation together with the Communist Party of China in BRICS seeks to cement the global aspirations for an alternative world where all countries compete on the basis of their natural and human resource endowment as opposed to unipolar dictatorship,” Mbalula added.
He said:
On Friday, Xiaodong confirmed Jinping and Ramaphosa would host an Africa-China dialogue on the BRICS sidelines.
The Chinese ambassador said Africa would be represented by Senegal President Macky Sall, who is the current chairperson of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, as well as Comoros President Azali Assoumani, whose country currently occupies the rotating Africa Union chairperson position.
Mbalula said the party would lobby for more significant investment in the country’s mining industry, adding South Africa did not want to just export raw materials.
“Instead, we want to have our minerals beneficiated here in South Africa as part of our industrialisation drive. That’s another area China could look into, [which] is mineral beneficiation.”
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