{"id":15765,"date":"2026-01-10T19:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/15765\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T19:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:25:14","slug":"iran-russia-and-china-join-for-naval-drills-in-south-africa-as-tensions-run-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/15765\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran, Russia and China join for naval drills in South Africa as tensions run high"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese, Russian, and Iranian warships have launched a week of naval drills off South Africa\u2019s Cape Town coast, amid high geopolitical tensions over the United States\u2019 intervention in Venezuela and its move to seize tankers carrying Venezuelan oil.<\/p>\n

These Chinese-led exercises, organised last year under the Brics bloc, aim to practice maritime safety and anti-piracy operations, and to \u201cdeepen cooperation\u201d, South Africa\u2019s armed forces have stated.<\/p>\n

China, Russia, and South Africa are long-standing Brics members; Iran joined the group in 2024. The Iranian navy\u2019s participation occurs as domestic protests against the Islamic Republic\u2019s leadership continue.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear if other countries from the Brics group \u2013 which also includes Brazil<\/a>, India<\/a> and the United Arab Emirates<\/a> among others \u2013 would take part in the drills. A spokesperson for the South African armed forces said they weren\u2019t yet able to confirm all the countries participating in the drills, which are due to run until next Friday.<\/p>\n

Chinese, Russian and Iranian ships were seen moving in and out of the harbour that serves South Africa\u2019s top naval base in Simon\u2019s Town, south of Cape Town<\/a>, where the Indian Ocean<\/a> meets the Atlantic Ocean<\/a>. China\u2019s ships include the Tangshan, a 161-meter (528-foot) long destroyer-class vessel. Russia\u2019s Baltic Fleet said it sent a smaller warship, the Stoikiy, and a replenishment tanker to South Africa.<\/p>\n

South Africa also hosted Chinese and Russian ships for navy drills in 2023.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A helicopter flys over a South Africa Navy submarine, following an incident with a South Africa Navy submarine during exercises off Kommetjie in Cape Town, South Africa September 20, 2023 (Reuters)<\/p>\n

The latest drills were meant to happen in late November but were delayed for diplomatic reasons because South Africa hosted Western and other world leaders for the Group of 20 summit around the same time.<\/p>\n

The drills are bound to further strain ties between the US, and South Africa, which is the most advanced economy in Africa and a leading voice for the continent but has been especially targeted for criticism by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump<\/a> said in an executive order in February that South Africa supports \u201cbad actors on the world stage\u201d and singled out its ties with Iran as one of the reasons for the US cutting funding to the country. China and Russia have often used Brics forums to launch criticism of the US and the West.<\/p>\n

South Africa has long claimed it follows a nonaligned foreign policy and remains neutral, but Russian presence on the southern tip of Africa has strained its relationship with the US before. The Biden<\/a> administration accused South Africa in 2023 of allowing a sanctioned Russian ship to dock at the Simon\u2019s Town naval base and load weapons to be taken to Russia for the war in Ukraine<\/a>. South Africa denied the allegation.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s willingness to host Russian and Iranian warships has also been criticised inside the country. The Democratic Alliance<\/a>, the second biggest political party in the coalition government, said it was opposed to hosting drills that included \u201cheavily sanctioned\u201d Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalling these drills \u2018Brics cooperation\u2019 is a political trick to soften what is really happening: government is choosing closer military ties with rogue and sanctioned states such as Russia and Iran,\u201d the Democratic Alliance said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese, Russian, and Iranian warships have launched a week of naval drills off South Africa\u2019s Cape Town coast,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[63,10249,584,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-15765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-china-and-russia","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-south-africa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15765","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=15765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}