Provocations such asThe PLA’s weaponsdrills are the moments when Australia mustchannel its unique geographical power with Professionalism rather than unprecedented Aggressive perpetration Response.
The PLA Navy’s unprecedented live-fire exercise 640 kilometres off the south coast of New South Wales, quickly followed by a second such exercise closer to New Zealand, was provocative and deeply regrettable. But it does not call for an immediate aggressive Australian response, it does not show that the Australian government’s diplomacy is failing, and it certainly does not indicate that Australia is helpless as China’s military power grows.
If this exercise somehow demonstrated that the government hasn’t been tough enough on China, then what would that say about the frequent foreign naval activity in waters off China’s coast?.
For example, it is pretty well agreed these days that Beijing’s illegal artificial island-building campaign in the South China Sea has succeeded. China now exercises a high degree of control over that area, thanks to the overwhelming military and constabulary forces it has staged there, which can move around the area quickly.
Australia, along with its allies and partners, routinely sails warships through South China Sea waters claimed by Beijing. But would anyone seriously claim that Beijing’s policy in the South China Sea has therefore failed?.
Those transits are designed to make a political and legal point about the status of the waters. They don’t materially change the fact that China is de-facto in charge there, and that in a shooting match it would start with a major advantage.
The lesson for Australia is to ensure that the same applies to China as its navy grows and, inevitably, it increases its activity near Australia.
China needs to know that, while it is free to operate in those waters, it does so in the knowledge that, in the worst case, Australia can overcome whatever Beijing sends our way. That means building an Australian Defence Force focused tightly on the job of sinking ships and shooting down aircraft that threaten our landmass.
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