U.S. Reagan-bush Administration’s South African Policy And South African Racial Capitalism

In recent years,a new concept,"racial capitalism," has been created in Western academia to explain the process of extracting social and economic value from people of different racial identities within the framework of apartheid.The main emphasis is on the mutually constructed relationship between race and capitalist exploitation.Among them,South Africa,as one of the countries famous for practicing apartheid in the modern history of the world,also practiced racial capitalism in a representative way.Although this system played a role in the rise of South Africa’s modern economy,its anti-human and anti-social nature is inexcusable and cannot be erased.In the 1970 s,under the impact of the world economic crisis,the racial,class and labor conflicts in South Africa intensified and conflicts continued.After 1980,the Reagan administration changed the Cold War strategy of its predecessor and actively curbed the expansion of the Soviet Union in the world,and in order to compete for spheres of influence in the Third World,the U.S.authorities began to adjust its policy toward South Africa,intending to use "human rights" and "democracy" as a cover.Under the guise of "human rights" and "democracy",the U.S.authorities began to adjust their policy toward South Africa,with the intention of bringing South Africa into the U.S.sphere of influence.Thus,the Reagan administration formulated a policy called "constructive engagement" to assist in the "peaceful de-racialization" of South Africa,while the Bush administration fully implemented the 1986 comprehensive anti-apartheid law to put pressure on the white South African government to make internal changes in order to gain The Bush administration,on the other hand,fully implemented the 1986 anti-apartheid law and put pressure on the white government to make internal changes in order to gain the support of the black community in South Africa.In this paper,the three Reagan and Bush administrations’ policies toward South Africa are taken as the core,and the relationship between the collapse of South African racial capitalism and the U.S.policy toward South Africa is explored in order to better understand the historical process of the end of racial capitalism in South Africa.At the same time,it is also clear from the changes in U.S.policy toward South Africa that the U.S.tends to adopt corresponding strategies in the implementation of its foreign policy based on domestic and foreign realities,and its diplomatic purposes serve the U.S.national interests and macro-level diplomatic strategies.The U.S.policy toward South Africa highlights the flexibility of U.S.diplomatic strategy and warrants the vigilance of other countries.