April 22, 2026
Sub-Saharan Africa, Academy, International Relations, International Trade & Development

Half-Maritime Powers off the Cape: Rethinking Sino-Russian Naval Exercises around South Africa

By Chen Wangwanyu

Naval activity near the Cape of Good Hope has drawn renewed attention amid mounting instability in global shipping corridors. Joint exercises involving China, Russia, and South Africa have prompted debate over their broader strategic meaning. Yet these engagements are more plausibly read as cautious, episodic efforts by primarily land-based powers to signal presence and test reach in a key maritime junction, rather than as evidence of a consolidated naval bloc.

In recent years, joint naval drills involving China, Russia, and South Africa off the Cape of Good Hope have frequently been cast in Western circles as the vanguard of a militarized BRICS alignment. The Mosi exercises in 2019 and 2023 (Blivas, 2021; Lesedi, 2023), and the new BRICS-Plus “Will for Peace” drills in January 2026 (Al Jazeera, 2026), are often framed as signs that the BRICS powers are militarizing and that Beijing and Moscow are reaching for influence at the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans (Plessis, 2023).

Those worries are reasonable. South Africa is adjacent to the main detour route connecting the Eurasian continent. Once the Red Sea and the Suez Canal are interrupted, shipping will be forced to detour. Container giants such as Maersk have repeatedly diverted traffic around the Cape of Good Hope in response to missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea and, more recently, war in Hormuz (Kamali et al., 2024; Partridge, 2026). Yet if we treat China and Russia as “half-maritime powers,” land-centred states whose naval reach is real but constrained, then from this angle, these exercises are not so much the birth of emerging maritime powers as an experiment in limited ocean presence.

A Theatre at the Edge of Two Oceans

In practical commercial terms, the global shipping industry relies heavily on two principal sea routes linking Europe and Asia: the short route via the Suez Canal and the longer detour around the Cape of Good Hope. Other routes exist in a technical sense, including those involving Panama or Cape Horn, but they are generally far less economical and more time-consuming for Europe–Asia trade. This is why the Cape becomes strategically salient whenever the Red Sea and Suez corridor are disrupted.

The short route is dominant in normal times. Roughly 12% of global trade and about 30% of global container traffic transit the Suez Canal, saving more than 3,000 nautical miles on a Tokyo–Rotterdam journey compared to going around Africa’s southern tip (New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2021; Myers, 2021). But when the Red Sea becomes too dangerous, as with Houthi attacks on shipping in 2024 and 2025 or the current Iran-centred conflict that has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz (Kollewe, 2026), major carriers have repeatedly rerouted vessels around the Cape, adding 10–14 days to Asia–Europe voyages.

The Cape route is therefore not an obscure alternative, but a strategically important contingency artery for Eurasian trade. Its importance has grown as disruptions to Suez and Hormuz have multiplied. Against this background, the normal deployment of any foreign naval forces in the region will be of concern, especially when the relevant parties are already in a strategic confrontation with Western countries.

Beyond the Drills: The Growing Symbolic Weight of Mosi and “Will for Peace”

Since the first Mosi in 2019, its image has been constantly evolving. Initially, it was just a relatively standard security exercise involving only a few frigates and anti-piracy drills, but now it has gradually evolved into a high-stakes diplomatic theatre. Take Mosi II in early 2023 as an example. The exercise itself is not large, but its timing has caused diplomatic controversy. Because the exercise was held on the anniversary of the war in Ukraine, the message conveyed by the participants was much louder than any other naval exercise, attracting strong condemnation from Western countries, while Pretoria insisted on its routine and maritime safety rationale. By the beginning of “Will for Peace” in January 2026, the scope and strategic messaging of the exercises had further expanded under the new BRICS-Plus banner. Underscoring the growing maritime ambitions of these traditionally land-centric powers, China took on a prominent leading role in the drills. This evolution marks a clear shift: what began as a simple sea exercise has evolved into a conscious declaration of collective presence, particularly resonant amid ongoing global tensions in the Middle East.

Although these task groups are not a permanent presence in the Cape, their real strength lies in the new normal they have created. Their purpose is not to directly control the sea, but to ensure that a Sino-Russian footprint near this global chokepoint is no longer considered abnormal.

Half-Maritime Powers off the Cape

Several high-profile port calls and joint drills should not be mistaken for the arrival of a mature maritime coalition. The activities off southern Africa are better described as land-centred powers operating at sea in selective and constrained ways. Drawing on the traditional framework established by S. C. M. Paine (Paine, 2025), there is a long-standing strategic logic dictating that a state’s geography shapes its trade routes, which in turn define its security priorities and institutional development.

From this perspective, Russia’s presence near the Cape fits a continental profile. Moscow’s maritime deployments are less about sustained sea-lane governance than about using naval presence for political signalling, diplomatic visibility, and strategic disruption. In waters far from the main Euro-Atlantic theatre, even limited deployments can generate a disproportionate symbolic effect. The point is that Russia is not on the verge of controlling the South Atlantic or Indian Ocean, but that it can still demonstrate reach, contest narratives of isolation (Bartlett, 2023), and remind others that it remains a globally visible military actor.

China’s calculus, while more economically driven, remains distinct from that of a classic maritime hegemon. Beijing’s concerns about the Malacca Strait, Red Sea instability, and the vulnerability of long-distance trade routes have increased the importance of the Cape as a fallback corridor. Crucially, China’s maritime interest here is also deeply tied to its expanding overseas footprint under the Belt and Road Initiative, encompassing commercial shipping, port investments, energy flows, and the imperative to protect Chinese citizens and assets abroad. The 2011 evacuation from Libya (Xinhua, 2014), in which thousands of Chinese nationals were extracted via Greek transit points like Piraeus, served as a watershed moment, highlighting how overseas logistical access translates into critical strategic value during a crisis.

This growing need for expeditionary capability does not necessarily mean Beijing is replicating the traditional global basing networks of older maritime empires. Echoing assessments by maritime scholars like Isaac Kardon (Kardon, 2026), China’s current model relies more on dual-use infrastructure, commercial port access, and logistical nodes that support intelligence gathering, replenishment, and non-combatant evacuation operations without crossing the threshold into full-fledged combat basing. Seen in this light, the PLA Navy’s participation in Mosi and “Will for Peace” serves limited but practical purposes: gaining distant-sea logistical experience, signalling a commitment to alternative trade routes, and reinforcing Global South solidarity. These are the actions of a state testing the outer limits of its maritime reach, not one ready to impose continuous sea-lane control.

South Africa’s Balancing Act

Far from being a mere backdrop, South Africa actively plays the role of the gatekeeper of the Cape. For Pretoria, hosting these drills isn’t just about naval manoeuvres; it’s a way to signal that the global order is no longer a unipolar affair.

Economically, South Africa maintains close ties with Western markets and finance and also actively seeks trade and investment with China. Politically, the South African government positions itself as a voice for the Global South, criticizes Western policies in Gaza, and submits genocide allegations against Israel to the International Court of Justice (Al Jazeera, 2024), while insisting that it maintains a non-aligned position on Ukraine. At home, however, the opposition fears that these exercises will undermine relations with Western partners. The danger facing Pretoria lies in a perceptual gap: South Africa’s routine cooperation may be misunderstood by Western partners as a decisive strategic adjustment.

Implications for Anglo-American Policymakers

For Anglo-American policymakers, the first priority should be to avoid threat inflation. Not every Sino-Russian exercise near the Cape signals a major shift in the balance of naval power. In fact, the constrained, “half-maritime” nature of these deployments aligns with Michael Beckley’s assessment that the United States and its allies still retain a sufficient margin of naval power to reliably balance against China and Russia (Beckley, 2017). Joint exercises, port calls, and symbolic solidarity demonstrations may be politically important, but they will not pose a credible challenge to Western command of the sea.

However, avoiding panic does not mean embracing complacency. While analysts such as Kelly Grieco warn of the acute and immediate challenges posed by emerging multipolar alignments to the US-led order (Grieco K & Kavanagh J, 2024), the primary risk off the Cape is not a sudden, symmetric naval overmatch. If every limited distant-sea coordination operation is interpreted as evidence of the full operation of the anti-Western maritime bloc, policymakers risk exaggerating what remains, at least for now, a constrained and uneven form of naval reach. The more useful question is whether episodic access is converting into regularized support networks such as repeat port access, logistical arrangements, replenishment capabilities, and intelligence functions that reduce the friction of distant-sea deployments.

A second implication is that Western policy toward South Africa must be more discriminating. As the gatekeeper of the Cape, Pretoria is highly sensitive to great-power coercion. Pressures like demanding that South Africa strictly pick a side may prove counterproductive, reinforcing Pretoria’s perception that its strategic autonomy is under attack. A more effective approach is to combine competition with selective engagement in areas like maritime domain awareness, port resilience, search and rescue cooperation, anti-piracy coordination, and infrastructure partnerships, which can offer practical value without demanding strict bloc discipline.

Finally, the strategic assessment of China must remain level-headed. Beijing’s naval activities reflect a genuine need to protect overseas interests and master distant-sea logistics, but they do not yet demonstrate the capacity for sustained sea-lane governance. Over the medium to long term, the task for policymakers is to patiently track whether limited presence is hardening into lasting capability, preserving allied advantages without pushing regional partners into anti-Western postures through unnecessary coercion. Overreaction would distort priorities; underreaction would miss slow-moving structural change. A successful strategy requires distinguishing between the two.

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