Livefire exercises by two Chinese warships off Australia’s east coast led to howls of outrage across the mainstream media in February.
Defence analyst Michael Shoebridge declared, “an abject failure of the government’s promise to comprehensively monitor these extremely capable Chinese warships”, after the warning from the ships was picked up first by a Virgin pilot.
But Defence and government officials had to admit that China’s actions were well within its rights under international law.
The action was a message from the Chinese government, but not, as Nine Papers’ Peter Hartcher hyped it up, “a political act of intimidation”.
The episode followed an encounter between an Australian surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter jet above the South China Sea earlier in February. China claimed the Australian aircraft had “deliberately intruded” into its airspace.
Australian navy vessels routinely take part in military exercises and operations in the South China Sea, including through the Taiwan Strait that separates Taiwan and China, less than 130 kilometres from the Chinese coast. The Chinese warships staged their exercises about 640 kilometres off Australia’s coast.
