Geopolitieke gebeure en die invloed op Suid-Afrika

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:01:38]It's a big honor to welcome Professor Nick Binedell, founding director of the Gordon Institute of Business of Gibbs. I think it's just a bit of a new work begin stand. Professor Binedell, welcome to this podcast. It's my last podcast for Nampo this year and it's it's an absolute honor to speak with you in Well, likewise. Thank you for inviting me. It's pleasure to be with you James.

[00:02:23]How do you see that conflict at this stage playing out and do you foresee that the impact of specifically then the closure of the street of Hormuz how long that impact could still last and and the influence on South Africa and the world economy? Well, a lot of people say that this conflict is a bit stuck at the moment.

[00:02:43]And it has some time [clears throat] to go.

[00:02:45]And as we all know there's a big backlog of fertilizer and many other products fertilizer related products stuck in in the straight some of it destined for South Africa.

[00:02:56]And it seems a bit of a stalemate in the sense that Iran is a is a very strong culture and resilient.

[00:03:05]And the leaders are prepared to be resilient and paid the price they've paid and then managed to block the straight as you said.

[00:03:12]I've been to Iran. It's a it's a very interesting civilization.

[00:03:17]It is Persian. It is not Arab. And it's a very well-established culture and civilization. So >> [snorts] >> they prepared to keep going for the moment in the stalemate. Hopefully there'll be a breakthrough. And we don't know whether President Trump and Xi Jinping is are likely to try and create some new formula to try and resolve it. But of course it's had very dramatic impact on supply chains. If I can just move there for a moment and I do want to elaborate on the discussions that took place this past week between Trump and his Chinese counterpart with [clears throat] Xi Jinping. But why specifically would he ask Xi Jinping to play a certain role in bringing end to this conflict and and opening the streets of Hormuz? Well, we live in a way in a very multipolar world again. I think at the end of the Cold War we thought it was a unipolar world and then a bipolar world, but it is a multipolar world with Russia having done what it's done in the Ukraine and China's continued growth. It's been fascinating to watch the interaction between them which we'll come to. Uh but of course China gets a huge amount of its oil uh from that region through the straits and if that's had a choke effect we don't know what damage it's doing to the Chinese economy. But it's a strategic issue for China. They've been very quiet and we don't know what's happening behind the scenes, but China is a superpower. And it's a peer superpower. And the two of them meeting is a sign just another sign of that.

[00:04:49]Come on stop for a moment and when two elephants fight it's the grass that suffers. Um so it ever so slightly so come warnings on Trump road with Taiwan. Uh Taiwan can not to lay that I can yay in a conflict situation can be long. But it is secure good for South Africa from the South African perspective as you need to be all the fun to me back line me.

[00:05:33]Uh the tight come by self and I can be clay or net stewed or some work. Um so you know China is this now superpower and it is saying to America the red line for us is Taiwan.

[00:05:48]The US has a commitment to Taiwan not to go to war but to provide weapons and munitions to it which it's doing $14 billion.

[00:05:58]So it is a is a big issue for the China.

[00:06:02]China regards Taiwan as its territory historically and we all know the history of Taiwan the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek left China cuz they lost to the Communist Party struggle. And they took a lot of gold and a lot of people and they occupied Taiwan and they've been there 23 million very successful economically but China wants it back the way it wanted Hong Kong and Macau back.

[00:06:26]So that is a going to be a long-term question. I think what Xi Jinping was doing was just making very clear and sending Trump that signal that this is serious business for us. And of course China's going to play a very strategic role probably first in Southeast Asia.

[00:06:42]And then in the in the world generally.

[00:06:45]And it's it's managed to do so extraordinarily well on manufacturing.

[00:06:49]On infrastructure and now technology. So it is a major major player for us and South Africa's foreign policy for what it is is a multipolar non-aligned policy.

[00:07:02]To try and work with everybody. It's what I call the Singapore policy.

[00:07:07]Friends with everybody don't annoy anybody. We annoy the West and especially the US a bit.

[00:07:13]But there's going to be space in which if you navigate carefully with good economic diplomacy and good foreign policy that could be of benefit to South Africa. But we should remember we very small potatoes in this game.

[00:07:26]We're a sideshow in a way. You know I I wish I could say it differently but we're a very small economy in this in this big picture.

[00:07:34]You referred down to China and the products that they deliver and production and so forth.

[00:07:40]>> This is what I really can trust on to the sky so I can tell that men are us two years earlier stop at by function of the entire standard for the type X near secret of it to speak near and a friend of all three of my friend of what more motors really good can what is more so that I can hear sit eight Pretoria FM on the capital to invest men and I let them all three of the sky for the style on the land to me to come is a more than Jacob. And in a leap pass so I can hear my friend of my three Chinese food style and I will see to me men that they are on the last of skip that they are all the more like all speak in the more to be dry and I will take time to get it to the work of the more than all the style of the sky style of the sky style of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more to sky style of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky and in the influence of the more than all the style of the sky It reminds me James of about 40 years or 50 years ago.

[00:09:22]When Japan started bringing cars into South Africa.

[00:09:26]Nissan, Toyota etc. And we had we had a bad word for it because it wasn't good quality, but it was low cost.

[00:09:33]And Japan then built up Toyota and other car companies to be world-class. The Chinese have done this so quickly.

[00:09:41]And they've taken about a third, I think, a quarter to a third of our domestic motor sales, and so they built quick market share. They are good value for money, and so they'll be attractive, and they have good technology. Uh and this is a major threat because South Africa is very unusual as a motor manufacturer.

[00:10:00]We have a long history, 70-80 years of motor manufacturing, at first assembly, but full-scale manufacturing. Australia doesn't make a single car. They just decided they weren't going to do that.

[00:10:11]They could buy them. We have a motor industry, and we export a very big amount. The knock-on effects in in in the motor industry is huge in South Africa. Components and all the other banking and finance, like agriculture, it's [snorts] a very complex value chain, and the government has supported the motor industry, and that's been a big factor. So, I don't know what government or the industry is going to do to counter the s- The Chinese models are new. They seem to be very good.

[00:10:38]There's a maybe a slight challenge with the parts and that sort of thing, but it's early days, and the China's determined to have a presence here, and they've already made it.

[00:10:46]Let's stick with the East for a moment.

[00:10:48]And and we see that a lot of the world's eyes are now moving to to the East, to the Asia emerging markets arising there. Could you could you elaborate for that on on that for us?

[00:10:59]Yeah. I mean, the you know, the the geographic data shows that the world moved sort of West down to America, and then started coming back, and it's moving eastwards the the logic, the center of gravity of the global economy. I've been to China a lot of times. India is a country we're not talking about enough.

[00:11:18]And I've been into Southeast Asia 18 weeks in the last 3 years, to Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand. And what is happening there is remarkable.

[00:11:28]The Southeast Asia, that's not India or Japan or China. Southeast Asia itself is 600 million people.

[00:11:35]They're many different kinds of economies and political systems, but they are growing 4, 5, 6% per annum, and they've been doing that for 20 years.

[00:11:43]And when you do that, you double the quality of life of your citizens. So, they are an extraordinary region from which we should learn and cooperate and balance our interests because of that growth. A lot of this Chinese people are throughout Southeast Asia. Third or fourth generation in Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, the 10 biggest companies in the Philippines are owned by people of Chinese origin.

[00:12:10]They're Chinese-owned family businesses.

[00:12:12]They are enormous enterprises. It's something, you know, we we got stuck at Benoni for the Far East, I think.

[00:12:19]Uh this has happened over 30 years, and we should pay much more attention to it.

[00:12:40]So, we see that Indonesia is doing um a lot of effort. They're They're going through a lot of trouble to to market themselves here in South Africa as well.

[00:12:53]There's no question we should pay attention to everything. Mhm. I mean, foreign policy is about building a map, looking at where you can build trade and relations and investment. Indonesia is not has not had a strong history in South Africa, mhm, but it's 220 million people. It's got a massive energy base.

[00:13:10]It's an emerging country in manufacturing. Um it's going to be a player. It's the largest Muslim community in the world. Mhm.

[00:13:29]I think >> It's been we've been slow to see the size of these markets and to look for opportunities because our historical orientation has always been to Europe, the UK and the USA.

[00:13:47]Um and we should rebalance and what we need is economic diplomacy. We need people in the embassies in all the major economies we trade with advancing our business interests and attracting investment. South Africa really needs investment.

[00:14:02]We have low domestic investment rates at the moment and very low foreign domestic investment and we absolutely need both.

[00:14:16]public private partnership this is what we call the public private term What do you think about? or if we need to wait for the state we need to wait for the state wait for the government or is it possible for the private sector to say despite the lack of the state we can succeed in establishing trade relations or do we need the government to make it possible?

[00:14:41]It must be both.

[00:14:44]But the private sector often can move quicker.

[00:14:47]So a particular company can look for an opportunity or a market and move faster perhaps than government but you do need both and foreign policy has this very important economic element I was referring to economic diplomacy where real experts on trade are able to negotiate from that country with the South African companies in order to help build relationships, deal with the terms of trade, deal with the investment rules for us going out and coming in. The imbalance of South African offshore investment is primarily to the west to Europe and the US. There's some There's some companies like Sun Lamar in India and so on and so on. Time Bank is big in the Philippines.

[00:15:31]An incredible story, Time Bank. And so there's some, but it's quite small.

[00:15:36]We haven't had a historical relationship with those countries. They're different languages, different cultures, and they seem quite far away. When in fact, in today's world, everything is your neighbor.

[00:15:46]I just Artificial intelligence is probably one of the biggest game-changers over the past few years. I remember when I um dealt with ChatGPT for the first time, and that was a very basic version. My jaw dropped about the functionality and of of this new platform.

[00:17:02]I've just made a 10-day trip across Eastern Europe by train.

[00:17:06]And I was able to do all my work all the time, whenever I wanted to, because of these capacities. And I remember when personal computers came out many, many years ago, and we had to train executives and others to use them.

[00:17:21]And I look at where we are today, the nature of how we live, the nature of work is being driven by these technologies. We talk a lot about social media, but it's it's productive use of these information systems. And what I always say is information is everywhere, but knowledge and insight isn't. So, everyone has access now. You can be in Bangladesh, that person, if they have a time, has the same access to all the information that you do.

[00:17:49]It's the knowledge and the insights and the institutions you build, but it is a dramatic change in our lifestyles. It's a change in politics, it's a change in economies, it's a change in society and how it functions. This is is a epoch.

[00:18:05]We have moved generally back to the broader picture from the rules-based international order that we lived under for 70 or 80 years after the Second World War into now a new world order, and this thing of AI and all the related activities are a part of that.

[00:18:22]You know, in terms of value chains, if I think of agriculture, where we are in Nampo, the impact for on farmers of being able to monitor crops using drones, fertilizer, I'm involved with Omnia.

[00:18:35]It's just extraordinary how productive these technologies can be.

[00:18:40]And as a nation, we need to embrace them you can't miss out on this revolution personally, institutionally, and as a country.

[00:18:49]This is the last time you have used the term "embrace". It's the second time you refer to embracing opportunities, whether it's emerging markets in Asia or whether it's new technology and and so forth. As you can see, the viewers with a last word or a last thought to leave by. They think I am not a part of multinational company or I am not a multi-millionaire.

[00:19:23]>> First is that the world has fragmented.

[00:19:26]So, almost anyone can start almost anything if you look at podcasters, for example.

[00:19:31]So, you must take advantage of that and you must embrace change.

[00:19:35]The challenge for countries that are conservative and sometimes we are uh we react is that this is offering new opportunities to people. You can start as a radio station with very little capital. Whereas before we had the SABC.

[00:19:51]So, it opens up a lot of opportunities to people. Someone once said to me, "Most people's memory is stronger than their vision."

[00:20:00]We're in a time, I think, for all the things we've talked about where your idea of next must be stronger than your idea of then.

[00:20:07]And if you adopt that attitude and don't resist the change, look for the positive and make a plan and try and take advantage of it from whether it's agriculture where we're talking, whether it's the auto industry that we talked on about, whether it's startup companies, people can build enterprises so quickly.

[00:20:25]What a fantastic time we're in.

[00:20:27]Professor Nick Binedell, founding director of the Gordon Institute of Business Sciences.

[00:20:57]Thank you, James.