{"id":35431,"date":"2026-01-10T15:04:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T15:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35431"},"modified":"2026-01-10T15:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T15:04:37","slug":"china-russia-iran-start-brics-plus-naval-exercises-in-south-african-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35431","title":{"rendered":"China, Russia, Iran start &#8216;BRICS Plus&#8217; naval exercises in South African waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>China, Russia and Iran began a week of joint naval exercises in South Africa&#8217;s waters on Saturday in what the host country described as a BRICS Plus operation to &#8220;ensure the safety of shipping and maritime economic activities&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>BRICS Plus is an expansion of a geopolitical bloc originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa &#8211; and seen by members as a counterweight to U.S. and Western economic dominance &#8211; to include six other countries.<\/p>\n<p>Though South Africa routinely carries out naval exercises with China and Russia, it comes at a time of heightened tensions between US President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration and several BRICS Plus countries, including China, Iran, South Africa and Brazil.<\/p>\n<p>The expanded BRICS group also includes Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese military officials leading the opening ceremony said Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia participated as observers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Exercise WILL FOR PEACE 2026 brings together navies from BRICS Plus countries for &#8230; joint maritime safety operations (and) interoperability drills,&#8221; South Africa&#8217;s military said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Read More:\u00a0Iran digs in as protests escalate nationwide<\/p>\n<p>Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, acting spokesperson for joint operations, told Reuters all members had been invited.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has accused the BRICS nations of pursuing &#8220;anti-American&#8221; 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<p>The pro-Western Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in South African President Cyril Ramaphosa&#8217;s coalition, said the exercises &#8220;contradict our stated neutrality&#8221; and that BRICS had &#8220;rendered South Africa a pawn in the power games being waged by rogue states on the international stage&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mathebula rejected that criticism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not a political arrangement &#8230; there is no hostility (towards the U.S.),&#8221; Mathebula told Reuters, pointing out that South Africa has also periodically carried out exercises with the US Navy.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China, Russia and Iran began a week of joint naval exercises in South Africa&#8217;s waters on Saturday in what the host country described as a BRICS Plus operation to &#8220;ensure the safety of shipping and maritime economic activities&#8221;. BRICS Plus is an expansion of a geopolitical bloc originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}