Right of reply: SA needs more factories, not more walls

A diplomat’s task is to bring his own country and his host country closer, not to tell the host which other partners it may work with, even less to urge the host country to erect walls against a third country. When Mr Kristian Schmidt, European Union Ambassador to South Africa, urges South Africa to raise tariffs against China in his interview with Daily Maverick on 21 October, he might have underestimated the wisdom of our South African friends.Competitiveness is not ‘overcapacity’China’s new energy vehicle (NEV) industry was built not on handouts but on two decades of research, fierce competition at home and the world’s most complete manufacturing supply chain. The market drives the industry, and the world welcomes China’s EVs, including most EU countries, especially when every country races to meet its climate commitments and affordable clean vehicles are indispensable to that effort.The real challenge of the green transition is shortage, not surplus. The International Energy Agency expects about 23 million electric cars to be sold worldwide this year, yet only about 25,000 were sold across Africa in 2025, and about 60% of vehicles added to the continent’s roads each year are imported second hand. Africa does not have too many affordable clean cars; it has far too few.Exporting is not a sin. By the standard now applied to China, Denmark, for example, would top the world’s “overcapacity” list: its exports equal about 70% of its GDP, and its current-account surplus reached 12.3% of GDP last year, more than three times China’s 3.7%. Danish wind turbines, medicines and pork sell the world over. In the EU, that is called competitiveness.The same goes for cars. Until last year, the EU sold China more vehicles and parts than it bought from China in every year on record; as recently as 2022, it shipped more than €30-billion worth. Was that dumping? Beijing never said so, and the EU calls it trade.Investment and jobs are already hereChinese firms come to South Africa to build, transfer and empower. BAIC has made vehicles in Gqeberha since 2018 with the Industrial Development Corporation, adding the Foton Tunland bakkie last year. In July, Chery took over Nissan’s Rosslyn plant, retaining its 692 workers, aiming to support about 3,000 supplier jobs and making South Africa its African manufacturing, export and R&D hub. These are not isolated cases: more than 200 Chinese enterprises have invested and built operations in South Africa, creating more than 400,000 local jobs.Who is really raising barriers?Walls built against China rarely stop at China. They end up penalising South Africa and other developing economies, and a tariff on affordable Chinese EVs would, in effect, be a tax on the Global South’s green transition.Since January, South African steel and aluminium exporters have had to start paying the EU’s carbon border levy. Since 1 July, a new EU steel regime has slashed import quotas and doubled the out-of-quota tariffs to 50%, putting South African producers at risk in their second-largest steel export market after China. China has taken the opposite course. Since 1 May, it has unilaterally granted zero-tariff treatment on 100% of tariff lines to all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations; South African apples were among the first goods to clear customs under the scheme. China asks for nothing in return.Respecting South Africa’s sovereigntyAmbassador Schmidt rightly observed that a trade deficit does not mean being cheated; it means consumers on both sides benefit. The same holds when a family in Soweto or Polokwane can afford a reliable car that is cheaper to run as fuel prices swing.South Africa is a sovereign state, fully able to weigh its own interests. It need not choose between Europe and China; it can work with both. China stands ready to work with South Africa, and the EU, to keep markets open, deepen industrial cooperation and help build the factories, supply chains and skills that turn green ambitions into green jobs. Competition that brings South Africans more choice, better products and more factories is not a threat, but an opportunity to seize together. DM