JOHANNESBURG—Chinese and Russian warships are streaming into South Africa’s ports, raising the ire of local American diplomats, human rights activists, and opposition parties in Africa’s largest economy.
Some of the Russian vessels are under sanctions implemented by the United States because they’re being used by Moscow in its war effort in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Association of South Africa (UAZA) also condemned the recent visit to South Africa of a Russian Tupolev Tu-160 long-range bomber.
“This is possibly the one responsible for killing Ukrainian children in Kharkiv,” UAZA President Kateryna Aloshyna said, referring to a city bombarded by Russian forces since they invaded in February 2022.
“Ostensibly, Russia sent the bomber to South Africa to participate in an air show in Pretoria, but I doubt it would spend so much money just on that,” Helmoed Heitman, a South African military historian, told The Epoch Times.
“I suspect that Russia’s motive in sending the Tu-160 was to deepen and strengthen its defense ties with South Africa and to show its ability to project power far away from home.”
A spokesperson for the South African Navy, Ruwayda Grootboom, told The Epoch Times: “There’s nothing unusual about the visits of Russian and Chinese naval training ships to our ports.
“South Africa, as a signatory to international maritime laws and conventions and as a sovereign state, has a right and responsibility to accept the docking of foreign vessels as a maritime nation.
“This is to allow ships and crew to rest and recuperate and to replenish supplies before they continue journeys elsewhere.”
Political analysts say the increasingly regular visits to South Africa by Chinese and Russian warships and warplanes show that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration is moving even closer to Washington’s greatest geopolitical enemies.
Both Moscow and Beijing have signed several military cooperation agreements with Pretoria over the past two years.
Michael Bond, defense spokesperson for South Africa’s second-largest political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), said the African National Congress (ANC) “is allowing instruments of war into our waters and skies in a clandestine way, because it wants to avoid public protests against their presence.”
The DA is the ANC’s main partner in South Africa’s coalition government but is pro-West and strongly opposed to the ANC’s alliances with anti-Western powers such as China, Iran, and Russia.
The ANC lost its 30-year majority in parliament after an election in May when voters responded to decades of problems that included corruption, poor service delivery, and high rates of violent crime and unemployment.
After power-sharing negotiations with the DA led to the formation of a government, the ANC held onto several important portfolios, including foreign affairs, security, and defense, allowing it to maintain its grip on international policy, the police, and the military.
“The ANC and only the ANC decides which battleships are allowed into our harbors,” Bond told The Epoch Times. “They keep their coalition partners in the dark.”
A U.S. diplomat in Pretoria who asked not to be named told The Epoch Times, “The constant under-the-radar visits to South African ports by Russian vessels, in particular, is morally reprehensible because they legitimize [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the ANC has claimed it is “non-aligned” and is opposed to war as a means of solving disputes.
Later, in several votes at the United Nations, the Ramaphosa administration refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion. It subsequently called both China and Russia “close friends.”
The ANC’s ties to Moscow and Beijing stretch back to the 1950s, when the Communist rulers of Russia and China began supporting the party with money, weapons, and military training during the liberation movement’s struggle against apartheid.
Many ANC leaders were educated in China or Russia and are frequent visitors to those countries, where they’re hosted by senior ruling party officials.
A South African maritime source told The Epoch Times that Russian and Chinese warships often “switch off” their automatic identification system transponders before entering harbors.
“This means they’re invisible to other vessels and to port authorities,” the source said. “It’s suspicious and suggests that Chinese and Russian and South African authorities are trying to conceal the presence of these ships.”
Another recent docking at Simon’s Town of a Chinese navy frigate, the CNS Xuchang, does not appear in official logs, according to naval sources.
Grootboom said this was an “administrative error” that had since been rectified.
“This particular ship docked so that it could transfer sailors to a hospital for treatment after an accident at sea that unfortunately resulted in the death of one sailor,” she explained. “It left the next day.”
Grootboom said as far as she was aware none of the Chinese and Russian vessels that had recently berthed at South African ports had been “actively used in conflicts.”
“I also don’t know anything about them switching transponders off,” she stated. “What’s the point of doing so when the light of day will reveal their presence anyway?”
Several sources at South Africa’s two biggest harbors, Cape Town and Durban, told The Epoch Times that most of the Chinese and Russian vessels entered ports only for short periods.
“Under these circumstances, it’s conceivable that these ships could successfully avoid public detection,” one of the port officials said.
He used the example of the Smolny, a naval training vessel that’s part of Russia’s Baltic Fleet. It entered Cape Town harbor on Aug. 29 and left on Sept. 1.
Grootboom confirmed this, saying: “The Smolny’s officers visited Simon’s Town [naval base] to meet the senior command of the South African Navy.
“During the stop, the crew replenished water, fuel, and food supplies, and performed technical inspection of the ship.”
Several sources in the aviation industry also told The Epoch Times that Russian Ilyushin IL-76TD cargo planes are making frequent visits to the South African Air Force’s main base, Waterkloof, near Pretoria.
“Again, there’s nothing sinister here. We chartered these aircraft to fly supplies to our soldiers who are on a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Siphiwe Dlamini, spokesperson for the South African National Defence Force, told The Epoch Times.
“These Russian cargo planes have been flying such missions in Africa for decades. They’re cheap and reliable.”
The UAZA called on Pretoria to “stop aiding and abetting Putin’s illegal war” by hosting “Russian warships masquerading as training vessels.”
“Russian invasion of a sovereign country is a violation of the United Nations Charter and in violation of hundreds of international agreements,“ Aloshyna said. ”It’s also in violation of South Africa’s own constitution and the rules-based international order.”
Aloshyna said the association asks South Africa to “immediately stop any economic and military cooperation” with Russia and “impose economic sanctions on Russian companies and individuals linked to the killings of civilians until the Russian forces withdraw.”
In February 2023, South African, Russian, and Chinese naval vessels held a joint maritime exercise off South Africa’s east coast.
The exercise caused tensions to flare between South Africa and several Western powers, most notably the United States, coming as it did on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The exercise resulted in members of Congress calling on the Biden administration to downgrade relations with South Africa and to exclude it from preferential trade access to the United States under the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
This time around, the public saw only two Russian Navy vessels—the frigate Neustrashimy and the replenishment ship Akademik Pashin—in the port, while Russian and Chinese sailors marched in the opening and closing parades.
The South African Navy and Pretoria’s Department of International Relations did not respond to requests for comment about why only China and Russia had been invited to the festival.
However, Chris Hattingh, the DA defense spokesperson, told The Epoch Times: “We all know where the ANC stands in terms of this China and Russia thing.
“If the ANC security apparatchiks were non-partisan, as they claim they are, they would have invited America, Britain, France, and Germany to the navy festival as well.”
