Visits by Chinese warships off the coast of Australia will be the new normal

Just days after a flotilla of Chinese ships from the People’s Liberation Army Navy conducted surprise back-to-back live-fire exercises in busy air traffic space in the Tasman Sea, US President Donald Trump’s apparent ignorance of AUKUS has brought home the new reality that the old verities that shaped Australian alliances look suddenly past their use-by date.

The insouciant voyage by the Chinese around our waters must surely be the start of things to come, as Beijing flexes its muscles to remind friends and foes of the strength and length of its reach.

The opposition has attacked Anthony Albanese’s handling of the Chinese navy’s live-fire exercises.Credit:

The warships travelled down the east coast, around Tasmania and into the Great Australian Bight, shadowed by a Royal Australian Navy frigate. But the Albanese government and the Australian Defence Force headquarters in Russell were made to look slightly lost at sea when the Chinese started live-fire exercises without adequate warning.

We only know this thanks to Senate estimates, where it was revealed that Airservices Australia only learnt about the exercise 30 minutes after the live-fire war game began. The Australian Defence Force was informed 10 minutes later, and the lag would have been even longer had a Virgin Australia pilot not tipped off authorities about the exercise.

Australia regularly conducts similar exercises in the South China Sea, but our military has a long-standing policy of providing 24- to 48-hour notice and scrupulously avoids areas with significant commercial air and sea travel.

This is the crucial variation with which the Chinese navy’s brusque behaviour in the Tasman Sea differs from Australia’s activities in the South China Sea.

Armed forces have reputations for creating unexpected problems, often under the heading “situation normal all fouled up”, but was the Tasman Sea exercise a case of military oversight or intentional international diplomatic rudeness?

We are unlikely to ever know. Either way, Beijing has cast a shadow over the Albanese government’s admirable achievement in rebuilding trade relations frittered away by the Morrison government’s search for a villain. The relationship between trade and defence with China has always tended to be fraught, but the Albanese government has restored normal diplomatic relations, and Australian wine, beef, barley and rock lobster are once again sold in China.

Perhaps that is why Albanese sought to play down the embarrassment of the flotilla presence, insisting that no aircraft had been in danger and China had issued, in accordance with practice, an alert that it would be conducting these activities.

Once, the government and the opposition were in lockstep on foreign policy. No longer. The opposition sought to turn the flotilla into an election issue and attacked Albanese’s handling of the Chinese navy’s live-fire exercises, pillorying him for not calling out Beijing’s bad behaviour, fudging over the details and looking weak.

It remains to be seen whether Australians are sufficiently concerned that our biggest trading partner has suddenly taken to sending warships off our coast as to change votes.

But visits by Chinese warships are sure to become the new normal as Beijing asserts its claim as a regional and global maritime power.

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