The US wants to reduce China influence in South Africa.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/bolton-to-outline-u-s-africa-strategy-to-counter-russia-china#gs.U8c7YGc

The US will find it very difficult to reduce China influence in South Africa because of its own bad history record.

The US was the one killing many South Africans (SAs) and trading black slaves in the past.  The US thought that the SAs had forgotten about this ugly history.

Let's look at how the South African think.