Regional Diplomacy Research Articles

SADCC, SANCTIONS AND SOUTH AFRICA

THIS ONE-DAY CONFERENCE on 18 April 1986 at the University of Birmingham, jointly sponsored by the Royal African Society and the Department of Extra-Mural Studies, Birmingham, brought together 57 participants drawn from public life, business, the academic world, journalism and the diplomatic service to discuss current problems and future prospects for relations between South Africa and her neighbours in the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference. The special focus was on the possible impact of sanctions on the states. The conference was opened by Douglas Rimmer, Vice-Chairman of the Council of the Royal African Society. He thanked Ian and Willie Henderson for their initiative in calling the conference, and urged that the meetings should be used not to provide an outlet for the passions which South African affairs provoke, but to examine objectively the oppositions of ideologies, economic interests and political forces in the region. He called for reali-sm in a spirit of free enquiry and rational debate. The day was divided into four sessions, the first of which provided a historical perspective to the formation of SADCC in 1980. Ian Henderson's paper reviewed South Africa's relations with the region from 1910 to 1975, reminding participants that Smuts's objectives in seeking afronding (rounding-off) of the Union's frontiers in the years after 1910 by the incorporation of the High Commission Territories were similar to the goals of detente in the 1970s: to structure the politics and the economies of southern Africa so that the Union/Republic defined development ob jectives for her neighbours in the interests of white South Africa. In one sense, South Africa's regional diplomacy in the 20th century was highly unsuccessful, Namibia being the only addition to the frontiers of 1910. But in a more important sense, South Africa's 'informal empire' in the region expanded in a silent but effective process about which little has been written. Responding to the theme that South Africa had failed by diplomacy to achieve direct political control over the hinterland, Willie Henderson looked at the origins of SADCC, not so much as a set of written agreements produced by the front-line states at the height of the war in Rhodesia but as a search for effective regional diplomatic alliances pre-dating the front-line brotherhood. Seretse Khama's key role in picking up and developing the

The Diplomatic Emergence of China and Its Implications for Southeast Asia

China's startling and still recent emergence from isolation into world diplomacy has left other countries rather breathless. There seems to be a high degree of co incidence between several developments that have contributed to this unexpected change in policy. Firstly, there was the ending of the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution in China itself, and a return to greater normality in internal and external policies. Secondly, there was the strenuous attempt of the Nixon Administration to end American involvement in Vietnam and place U.S. policy in Asia, including China, on a new footing. Thirdly, there was the inevitable but much delayed admission of China to the United Nations in September 1971, where she took her place as a permanent member of the Security Council. These three developments, occurring in rapid succession, undoubtedly heightened the impact of the arrival of China on the world stage. In the subsequent period, other countries have been engaged in readjusting, in their several ways, to the new circumstances. By far the most important of these developments, in terms of its implications for the future shape of international relations and the strategic balance in Southeast Asia, has been the rapprochement between Peking and Washington. This factor alone has contributed immensely to the new and alarming (or exciting, depending on the point of view) fluidity in Southeast Asian affairs today. The old guidelines and the old alliances are rapidly being replaced by as yet largely untried experiments in regional diplomacy. New assessments are still being made of what really constitutes the national interest, based on new analyses of Chinese and American intentions in the area. China's role in the United Nations and her own internal stability are still relevant factors to be taken into consideration, but when it comes to a realistic political appraisal, these things pale beside the American withdrawal from the Asian mainland and the consequent looming of China's economic and military potential. No longer is the dividing line simply between two opponents, communist and non-communist. There is the now familiar element of Sino-Soviet rivalry, and the chrysalis of Japanese power, to be used in a way that may not continue to be confined simply to the economic sphere. It is in this quadrilateral situation that the countries of Southeast Asia now have to find their way. Their response has been twofold. First, they have sought to find each other in a regional embrace; and second, they have scanned the signposts pointing to a new approach to China, some by one route, some by another. A feature of ASEAN, and one reason for its present vitality, is the confidence it has engendered in its members through the practice of pooling information over a wide field, of co-ordinating policies that have moved beyond the economic to the political, and of confiding bilateral ini tiatives where these occur (as in the case of China). Here is a regional grouping that is not too constricted by a common approach, but which can heal divisions

General Mosquera's Mission to Chile and Peru: A Turning Point in New Granadan Diplomacy

The 1842-1844 diplomatic mission of General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera is generally assumed to have had as its major purpose the extradition of his personal and political enemy, General José María Obando. Obando had been a rebel leader in the War of the Supremos, the New Granadan civil war of 1839-1842, and the victorious administration in Bogotá (theministeriales) had also charged him with complicity in the 1830 assassination of Marshal Antonio José de Sucre. During the diplomatic mission a large portion of Mosquera's time and effort was indeed spent in attempting to obtain Obando's extradition and to discredit him in various ways. This study, however, will be concerned primarily with the original objectives of the mission—those relating to New Granada's role in the regional diplomacy of western South America.

Regional Diplomacy of the Commonwealth Caribbean

Regional Diplomacy of the Commonwealth Caribbean

Regional Diplomacy of the Commonwealth Caribbean

Regional Diplomacy of the Commonwealth Caribbean