By Tim Cocks
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 10 (Reuters) - China, Russia and Iran began a week of joint naval exercises in South Africa's waters on Saturday in what the host country described as a BRICS Plus operation to "ensure the safety of shipping and maritime economic activities".
BRICS Plus is an expansion of a geopolitical bloc originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - and seen by members as a counterweight to U.S. and Western economic dominance - to include six other countries.
Though South Africa routinely carries out naval exercises with China and Russia, it comes at a time of heightened tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and several BRICS Plus countries, including China, Iran, South Africa and Brazil.
The expanded BRICS group also includes Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
Chinese military officials leading the opening ceremony said Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia participated as observers.
"Exercise WILL FOR PEACE 2026 brings together navies from BRICS Plus countries for ... joint maritime safety operations (and) interoperability drills," South Africa's military said in a statement.
Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, acting spokesperson for joint operations, told Reuters all members had been invited.
Trump has accused the BRICS nations of pursuing "anti-American" 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.
The pro-Western Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's coalition, said the exercises "contradict our stated neutrality" and that BRICS had "rendered South Africa a pawn in the power games being waged by rogue states on the international stage".
Mathebula rejected that criticism.
"This is not a political arrangement ... there is no hostility (towards the U.S.)," Mathebula told Reuters, pointing out that South Africa has also periodically carried out exercises with the U.S. Navy.
"It's a naval exercise. The intention is for us to improve our capabilities and share information," she said.
(Additional reporting by Sfundo Parakozov. Editing by Mark Potter)
