Emergence is at least a necessary condition for self-replication to occur.
Emergence is a case of tangled hierarchy or Strange Loop, as Douglas Hofstadter would put it. This is simply an issue of definition. Self-replication is a necessary condition for evolution. In any evolutionary system, the ability to self-evolve is selectively advantageous. While there may be exceptions to this, I think it is true given the neo-Darwinian paradigm we currently hold.