The European Union: Brexit Aftermaths and Divergent Futures

With an eye toward the future, this chapter looks at China’s growth trajectory and what implications they have for South Africa’s other highly valuable commercial partner, the EU. The chapter conducts an assessment of European and Chinese exports to South Africa over the 2007–2018 period. Findings indicate that Chinese exports to South Africa have not supplanted total EU exports to South Africa, unlike the case with the country’s other previous leading trade partners in previous chapters. However, in this timeframe, China’s rate of growth has outgrown that of Europe, and some products which were principally sourced from the EU were subsequently imported more from the PRC. This indicates that if the present trajectory continues, China will replace Europe as the principal export partner of South Africa within a decade or a little over it. The onset of Brexit, with the UK being a key trade partner for South Africa within the EU, will expedite this trend by diminishing the gap between the EU and PRC’s respective exports to South Africa.