{"id":14887,"date":"2026-01-10T09:19:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/14887\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T09:19:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:19:05","slug":"china-russia-iran-start-brics-plus-naval-exercises-in-south-african-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/14887\/","title":{"rendered":"China, Russia, Iran start ‘BRICS Plus’ naval exercises in South African waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Item 1 of 4 A Russian vessel arrives at the Simon’s Town Naval base ahead of the BRICS Plus countries which include China, Russia and Iran for a joint naval exercises in South Africa’s, in Cape Town, South Africa, January 9, 2026. REUTERS\/Esa Alexander<\/p>\n

[1\/4]A Russian vessel arrives at the Simon’s Town Naval base ahead of the BRICS Plus countries which include China, Russia and Iran for a joint naval exercises in South Africa’s, in Cape Town, South Africa, January 9, 2026. REUTERS\/Esa Alexander Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab<\/a>Exercises aim to ‘enhance maritime safety’, South Africa saysTrump accuses BRICS nations of ‘anti-American’ policiesSouth Africa denies hostility, says exercises are apoliticalExpanded BRICS seen as counterweight to Western dominance<\/p>\n

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 10 (Reuters) – China, Russia and Iran began a week of joint naval exercises in South Africa’s waters on Saturday in what the host country described as a BRICS Plus operation to “ensure the safety of shipping and maritime economic activities”.<\/p>\n

BRICS Plus is an expansion of a geopolitical bloc originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and seen by members as a counterweight to U.S. and Western economic dominance – to include six other countries.<\/p>\n

Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Though South Africa routinely carries out<\/a> naval exercises with China and Russia, it comes at a time of heightened tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and several BRICS Plus countries, including China<\/a>, Iran<\/a>, South Africa<\/a> and Brazil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The expanded BRICS group also includes Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Chinese military officials leading the opening ceremony said Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia participated as observers.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, acting spokesperson for joint operations, told Reuters all members had been invited.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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”.<\/p>\n

Mathebula rejected that criticism.<\/p>\n

“This is not a political arrangement … there is no hostility (towards the U.S.),” Mathebula told Reuters, pointing out that South Africa has also periodically carried out exercises with the U.S. Navy.<\/p>\n

“It’s a naval exercise. The intention is for us to improve our capabilities and share information,” she said.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Sfundo Parakozov. Editing by Mark Potter<\/p>\n

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a>\"Tim<\/a><\/p>\n

Tim Cocks has reported from all over Africa for Reuters for the past two decades (aside from a stint covering the Iraq war in 2008\/9). In his current role, he covers politics, climate change, diplomacy and human interest. Previously he was bureau chief for West & Central Africa. A story on the environmental disaster of Ghana\u2019s artisanal gold mining won him a SABEW award for best feature in 2019. He is also the author of \u2018Lagos:Supernatural City\u2019, an intimate portrait of the life in Africa\u2019s biggest metropolis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Item 1 of 4 A Russian vessel arrives at the Simon’s Town Naval base ahead of the BRICS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[9876,488,1773,9872,2096,4590,7291,2844,4591,4893,1989,1990,1783,2003,1997,707,701,2000,9879,9878,2005,1998,2881,1402,3240,1995,495,1787,9880,2002,1784,2001,1788,1999,1782,2006,2004,5602,1853,705,711,5360,1392,4892,491,493,1397,690,9875,2650,9877,2875,3396,1405,1774,4589,1394,3241,1996,695,2757,1778,4588,3017,5227,1399,2876,9528,9874,131,5395,9873,9871,4960,592,1993,2758,1855],"class_list":{"0":"post-14887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-ae","9":"tag-afr","10":"tag-amers","11":"tag-asean","12":"tag-asia","13":"tag-asxpac","14":"tag-br","15":"tag-ceeu","16":"tag-cisc","17":"tag-cn","18":"tag-cwp","19":"tag-def","20":"tag-destabn","21":"tag-destafa","22":"tag-destcsa","23":"tag-destdnp","24":"tag-deste","25":"tag-destg","26":"tag-destgbn","27":"tag-destgfn","28":"tag-destgns","29":"tag-destlby","30":"tag-destocatpm","31":"tag-destouktpm","32":"tag-destoustpm","33":"tag-destouswdm","34":"tag-destozatpm","35":"tag-destpco","36":"tag-destpcu","37":"tag-destpge","38":"tag-destpsc","39":"tag-destrast","40":"tag-destrbn","41":"tag-destreulb","42":"tag-destrnp","43":"tag-destrws","44":"tag-destrwsa","45":"tag-destseatp","46":"tag-destsf","47":"tag-destu","48":"tag-destucdptest","49":"tag-destz","50":"tag-dip","51":"tag-easia","52":"tag-emea","53":"tag-emrg","54":"tag-europ","55":"tag-gen","56":"tag-id","57":"tag-in","58":"tag-ir","59":"tag-latam","60":"tag-meast","61":"tag-mtpix","62":"tag-namer","63":"tag-nasia","64":"tag-news1","65":"tag-packageus-top-news","66":"tag-packageworld-news","67":"tag-pol","68":"tag-potus","69":"tag-pxp","70":"tag-ru","71":"tag-rulessouth-africa","72":"tag-sa","73":"tag-safr","74":"tag-samer","75":"tag-sasia","76":"tag-seasia","77":"tag-south-africa","78":"tag-swasia","79":"tag-tglf","80":"tag-topicworld-brics","81":"tag-trd","82":"tag-us","83":"tag-war","84":"tag-wash","85":"tag-za"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}