South Africa has given its approval for China and Russia to conduct naval exercises off its coast, raising concerns of further alienating the country from the West.
Operation Mosi – which means “smoke” – is scheduled to take place between February 17 and 26 of next month, Bloomberg reported.
FILE – The Chinese navy front destroyer Jinan and the Russian navy cruiser Varyag sail in formation after a joint naval exercise, Joint Sea 2022, in the East China Sea on December 27, 2022.
(Sun Fei/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Kobus Marais, shadow defense minister of the opposition Democratic Alliance party, has questioned the motivations for going ahead with the plan, calling it “another bad judgement, a disgrace.”
He said the deal will give the impression that South Africa is not only “neutral but biased to one side.”
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“Clearly it can alienate us from another major trading partner, the West,” he said. “This is in the best interests of Russia.”
The start of the exercises will begin almost a year to the day Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
A similar exercise took place in South African territorial waters in November 2019, between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Columbine.
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The South African National Defense told DefenseWeb that next month’s exercise will involve three Chinese ships, two Russian ships and a South African naval platform.
