China makes its point with ‘most potent’ warship

Beijing chose one of its most powerful warships for its show of force off Australia’s east coast, sending a stark message over China’s military might and its formidable industrial capabilities.

The Chinese navy’s Renhai-class destroyer, the Zunyi, is one of the country’s most potent warships and is currently sailing off Australia’s east coast. Photo: China Central Television

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Beijing chose one of its most powerful warships for its show of force off Australia’s east coast, sending a stark message over China’s military might and its formidable industrial capabilities.

The lead vessel in the Chinese flotilla that disrupted passenger flights with live weapons drills in recent days is a 12,000 tonne Renhai-class destroyer, the Zunyi, equipped with 112 vertical launch missile cells – more than twice as many as Australia’s most capable warships.

Its land attack missiles can hit targets up to 1080 nautical miles (2000km) away, and it is reported to have anti-ship ballistic missiles with ranges of more than 540 nautical miles (1000km).

But just as alarming to Australian military planners is the fact that China turned out eight of the ships in less than a decade and has started building eight more.

Australia is not due to get the first of nine new general purpose frigates until 2030, while the botched Hunter-class frigate program won’t deliver a finished warship until 2032 at the earliest.

“This is one of the most modern warships in the world,” former naval officer Jennifer Parker said.

“If you look at its 112 vertical missile cells, and the type of missiles they can launch, it’s a clear demonstration of capability.

“It’s worth noting too on the shipbuilding front – they built eight of these ships and commissioned them within eight years, and now they’re onto batch two.

“It’s not like we can match China but we need to think about the timelines we are setting for our naval shipbuilding programs.”

The Zunyi, together with the Jiangkai-class frigate, Hengyang, and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel, Weishanhu, were reported to be sailing about 280 nautical miles (518km) east of Tasmania on Monday.

The task group’s presence comes as the Royal Australian Navy fields its smallest and oldest fleet in decades.

Aside from the navy’s ageing Collins-class submarines – all six of which were recently out of action at the same time – the service’s combatant fleet is limited to three Hobart-class destroyers and seven Anzac-class frigates.

The destroyers each have 48 vertical launch missile cells, and are considered undergunned for warships of their size. The Anzacs, which are aged between 19 and 27 years, have just eight vertical-launch cells each.

Sailors aboard HMAS Arunta monitor the People’s Liberation Army-Navy task group in the Tasman Sea. Picture: Defence

Ms Parker, an adjunct fellow at UNSW Canberra, said successive governments had failed to prioritise new investments in the ­nation’s maritime power.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision to reduce the fleet to 10 surface combatants, it was a lack of investment over decades,” she said.

She attributed the lack of urgency in securing new ships to “a belief that our way of life is not threatened”.

US Studies Centre defence program director Peter Dean said the Chinese naval task group’s presence off Australia’s east coast was a timely reminder of the need to rapidly expand the ADF’s ability to deter adversaries at long range.

“What we are seeing here is a demonstration of Chinese power and of the speed at which we need to respond with our own defence capability program,” he said.

“It shows we probably need to go a bit faster and spend more money to keep improving on those capabilities that have been announced and make sure they arrive in the time frame we need them.”

New Zealand Defence Minister Judith Collins warned of the potential threat posed by the naval task group, pointing to the Zunyi’s “extremely capable” weapons systems.

“We’ve certainly never seen a task group of this capability undertaking this sort of work. It’s certainly a change,” she told RNZ Radio. “One has 112 vertical launch cells and has a reported anti-ship ballistic missile range of 540 nautical miles (1000km).”

China accused Australia of “hyping up” the presence of its warships off Australia’s coast after the Albanese government complained at the short notice provided ahead of live fire drills on Friday and Saturday.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Monday that he had authorised an “unprecedented level of surveillance” of the Chinese ships, and argued Australia provided much more notice before conducting live weapons exercises.

But he has stopped short of criticising the deployment since it appeared off Australia's coast, and made no mention of the ships’ firepower.

He defended the pace of the government’s revitalisation of the navy, saying Australia was not seeking to become “a peer military to China because obviously … that’s never going to happen”.

“What it is about is making sure we have a much greater capability going forward into the 2030s and 40s and beyond, such that we are able to resist coercion from any adversary,” he said.

“And we’re on track to do that now. Would it be good to have that capability today? Well, of course it would. But you know, we are the inheritors of what was a lost decade under the Liberals where really we saw our capabilities deteriorate.”

The Coalition likewise complains that the Rudd and Gillard governments neglected shipbuilding, and that Defence spending fell to 1.6 per cent of GDP under Labor.