Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The joint naval drills that South Africa is hosting off its coast with China and Russia set a positive example of a developing country refusing to take sides in the so-called New Cold War. The U.S. has made no secret of its desire to simultaneously contain China and Russia, to which end it's aggressively pressured others to follow its lead. In particular, it wants countries like South Africa to distance themselves from those two countries exactly as the U.S. has.

South Africa, however, is a self-respecting and independent state that proudly refuses to bow to others' demands. Furthermore, the optics of majority-Black South Africa complying with the majority-Caucasian U.S.'s foreign policy diktats would betray the sacrifices of its anti-apartheid activists who fought for decades to free their country. Everything would be in vain if South Africa ultimately submitted to anyone, least of all the U.S.

There are also practical reasons apart from the aforementioned symbolic ones for why South Africa refused to distance itself from China and Russia as the U.S. wants it to. Doing so would amount to unilateral concessions against its objective national interests, since those two are some of its closest economic partners. South Africa is also working together with them through BRICS to accelerate the emerging multipolar world order, so dumping those two would go against its own goal.

With a view towards comprehensively expanding their mutually beneficial strategic partnership, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited South Africa late last month to meet with his counterpart Naledi Pandor. During that time, he defended their upcoming joint naval drills with China as transparent and conducted in accordance with the tradition of all countries carrying out such exercises with their friends. Nevertheless, the U.S. Embassy in South Africa subsequently said that it's "concerned" about them.

The U.S.'s position is completely unprincipled, laced as it is with hegemonic arrogance. It's not that country's place or any other's to tell South Africa or anyone else who they can and can't conduct joint drills with. Every country has the right to carry out such exercises, so long as they aren't aimed against any third parties. These upcoming drills strengthen ties between their participants and showcase their friendship, which also reminds South Africans of how close their country is with those two.

It's officially close with the U.S. too, however, so much so that President Cyril Ramaphosa visited his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden last September to discuss ways to further strengthen their ties. Despite that, the U.S. still went ahead with expressing "concern" about its drills with China and Russia, which shows South Africans that it isn't as truly friendly with their country as those two are. Pandor also appears to have recently realized this, judging by a prior statement.

In the run-up to last month's meeting with her Russian counterpart, she condemned the U.S. "Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act" as a "totally unwarranted…intrusion that goes against international law," which she said should "be torn up." Her anger against it is justified since no self-respecting and independent country such as hers would ever support a piece of legislation that threatens sanctions against them if the U.S. determines that their ties with Russia are against its interests.

Considering this context, it makes perfect sense why South Africa defied U.S. pressure by continuing to go through with its upcoming drills with China and Russia despite Washington's so-called concerns. There was never any realistic chance that it would unilaterally concede on its national interests by canceling them and thus abruptly worsening its ties with both just to please the U.S. The example indisputably being set by Pretoria is that developing countries don't have to choose sides in the U.S.'s "New Cold War."

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