China, Russia and Iran on Saturday launched a week-long series of joint naval exercises in South African waters, which the host nation described as a BRICS Plus initiative aimed at ensuring the security of shipping routes and maritime economic activity.
BRICS Plus represents an expanded version of the original BRICS bloc—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—formed as a geopolitical grouping that members view as a counterbalance to U.S. and Western economic dominance. The expansion has brought six additional countries into the fold.
While South Africa regularly conducts naval drills with China and Russia, the exercises come amid heightened tensions between the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and several BRICS Plus members, including China, Iran, South Africa and Brazil.
The expanded BRICS grouping also includes Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
Chinese military officials leading the opening ceremony said Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia participated as observers.
“Exercise WILL FOR PEACE 2026 brings together navies from BRICS Plus countries for … joint maritime safety operations (and) interoperability drills,” South Africa’s military said in a statement.
Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, acting spokesperson for joint operations, told Reuters all members had been invited.
Trump has accused the BRICS nations of pursuing “anti-American” polities, and last January threatened all members with a 10% trade tariff on top of duties he was already imposing on countries across the world.
The pro-Western Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s coalition, said the exercises “contradict our stated neutrality” and that BRICS had “rendered South Africa a pawn in the power games being waged by rogue states on the international stage”.
Mathebula rejected that criticism.
“This is not a political arrangement … there is no hostility (towards the US),” Mathebula told Reuters, pointing out that South Africa has also periodically carried out exercises with the US Navy.
Chinese state media has said one of China’s top officials met with Disney CEO Bob Iger in Beijing on Friday.
“It’s a naval exercise. The intention is for us to improve our capabilities and share information,” she said.
Source: Dunya News
