South Africa: Tough Love Triangle - While Ramaphosa Focused On Xi, Modi Threw a Tantrum and Refused to Get Off His Plane

@PresidencyZA / X
The South African's presidency's post about the arrival of Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, August 22, 2023.
22 August 2023
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
By Peter Fabricius

All the attention South Africa is heaping on visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared to have miffed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Xi's state visit and the BRICS Summit began on Tuesday, 22 August.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to get off his aircraft at Waterkloof Air Force Base because the South African government had only sent a Cabinet minister to officially welcome him, officials said. By contrast, President Cyril Ramaphosa had personally been on the tarmac to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping when he arrived on Monday night.

Eventually, Ramaphosa despatched Deputy President Paul Mashatile from the Union Buildings formalities being held for Xi to dash to Waterkloof to welcome Modi.

Xi certainly dominated the day. For starters, he was granted an abbreviated state visit on the morning before the BRICS Summit began -- his fourth state visit to South Africa. He has been welcomed to South Africa on state visits on the occasions of the two previous BRICS summits in this country, in 2013 and 2018, as well as when he visited South Africa to co-chair the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation with Ramaphosa in 2015.

Pretoria had hoped to tack a similar event for Modi on to this year's BRICS Summit, but officials said that scheduling clashes precluded this.

In addition to the state visit, Ramaphosa also honoured Xi with the Order of South Africa, the country's highest official award. And...

Read the full story on Daily Maverick.

Tagged:
Copyright © 2023 Daily Maverick. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.