South Africa hosts joint naval drills with China, Russia

China is flexing some naval and diplomatic muscle off the southern coast of Africa just as tensions with the U.S. deepen on a range of fronts.

On Friday, Chinese, Russian and South African warships kicked off a 10-day joint exercise in the Indian Ocean. The “Mosi 2” trilateral drills off South Africa run through Feb. 27, according to Moscow’s official TASS news agency. China is sending a destroyer, a frigate and a support ship, South Africa is deploying a frigate and two support ships, and Russia is drilling a frigate and a tanker.

It is the second such trilateral exercise. The first took place just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in November 2019.

 “The joint drills will contribute to peace and stability in the region, as the three countries have common interests in protecting sea lanes involving key commercial activities in the Indian Ocean from piracy and other security threats,” Beijing-based and state-controlled

Though there is no formal alliance binding them, China’s and Russia’s armed forces have been conducting a range of joint drills since the early 2000s. The willingness of South Africa to participate despite friction in East Asia and Ukraine has caused some consternation and grumbling in the U.S. and Western Europe, as well as from domestic critics of the government of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“These exercises are going to be a lightning rod,” Steven Gruzd, of the South African Institute of International Affairs, told the Reuters news agency.

Both the Chinese and Russian navies have reasons to signal to domestic audiences and to the international community that they operate with global reach and punch.

China’s rapidly expanding People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, is keen to demonstrate that it is a blue-ocean fleet with wide-ranging capabilities and partners.

Like Russia, China has traditionally been a continental power and the eastern and western flanks of the Eurasian continent are contested — by NATO to the west and by a network of U.S. alliances across the Pacific.

That leaves African and Middle Eastern waters in play. Chinese naval incursions into the Indian Ocean have been of deep concern to India. 

While the U.S. boasts a global web of bases, Beijing came late to the party: It opened its first overseas base, in Djibouti in northeastern Africa, in 2017. Beijing has, however, won a string of global infrastructure projects with its Belt and Road initiative, establishing especially deep footprints across Africa.

Economic presence could feasibly escalate to strategic partnerships.

“What we are now seeing is Chinese engagement in Equatorial Guinea and the potential of a base on Africa’s west coast, on the Atlantic,” said Alex Neill, a fellow at the Pacific Forum think tank. “It’s a transcontinental joining-up effect: Security and infrastructure on both sides of the African continent.”

For Russia, the war in Ukraine has disastrously frayed Western ties, but left some diplomatic doors open in the development world. Despite its isolation and the sanctions imposed on it, Russia continues to conduct military diplomacy in places like Mali, South Africa and Syria.

There is domestic messaging, too.

While the Kremlin’s battered Black Sea fleet cannot reinforce its depleted units via the strategic Bosphorus Strait — which has been closed to warships by Turkey since the Ukraine invasion nearly a year ago — the visit of naval units to South Africa proves that Moscow’s navy retains freedom of maneuver and has friends in far-off places.

TASS suggests a special test will reinforce the message of Russian military reach and competence.

“A source close to the Russian military-industrial complex told TASS that … for the first time ever during such an event, a combat training launch of a hypersonic Tsirkon missile from a ship will be carried out.”

The Tsirkon is a hypersonic missile — a Russian-developed weapons class against which no Western military has a sure defense. 

South Africa is a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) grouping and has thus been reluctant to side openly against Russia, despite pressure from the West.

“South Africa, like any independent and sovereign state, has a right to conduct its foreign relations in line with its … national interests,” Pretoria’s Defense Ministry said in a statement defending the exercises last month.

Mr. Neill, an expert on Chinese strategy, speculated that Beijing might proffer economic carrots.

“I’d guess there will be some trade-off, whether it is debt diplomacy, loans, or barter agreements,” he said. “There has to be some kind of incentivization to host this.”