Australian navy divers injured by Chinese warship’s sonar pulses

The federal opposition says the PM has ‘questions to answer’ over a ‘malign’ incident in which Australian navy personnel were injured in an interaction with a Chinese warship.

Warships of Chinese navy take part in a joint naval exercise in 2022 in the East China Sea. Picture: Getty

The federal opposition has demanded Anthony Albanese reveal whether he confronted Xi Jinping at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco over an incident in which Australian navy personnel were injured in an interaction with a Chinese warship.

The Australian government waited until after the conclusion of APEC to reveal that divers with the Royal Australian Navy suffered minor injuries after being subjected to sonar pulses from a Chinese warship. The incident occurred off the coast of Japan, with the government confirming the personnel were hurt on Tuesday November 14 – a full day before the Prime Minister left to attend the APEC leaders’ meeting.

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the Coalition condemned the actions of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N), but added that the Albanese government had some “serious questions to answer.”

“The Prime Minister must explain …. whether he raised it directly with President Xi Jinping at APEC,” Mr Hastie said. “What we continue to see from the Prime Minister and his Labor government is a lack of leadership and a lack of action.”

“We have always said that we will judge the Chinese Communist Party on their actions rather than their words, and this provocative behaviour contradicts the Government’s belief they are witnessing a stabilisation of the relationship with China. This incident is evidence to the contrary,” he said.

“The Prime Minister must immediately disclose whether he raised this matter with President Xi, or whether it was withheld for expedient political purposes. Any failure to do so would rightly raise questions around Anthony Albanese’s ability to lead our nation.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson told The Australian.“This conduct by the People’s Liberation Army Navy is irresponsible, dangerous and aggressive.

“To deliberately harm Australian navy personnel operating within the exclusive economic zone of Japan is particularly egregious and totally contrary to the pronouncements of friendship we saw in Beijing.

“It’s certainly not the act of a friend and it is completely contrary to the warmth and the apparent friendship that was displayed in Beijing only a couple of weeks ago when the prime minister and the foreign minister were there,” Senator Paterson added.

“On one hand, China says it wants a better relationship with Australia and on the other hand it takes dangerous manoeuvres that put the safety of Australian personnel at risk and in fact has caused them injuries in this case.

“This is very malign behaviour and it is yet more evidence of why the relationship with China is far from normal

“The Prime Minister should immediately explain whether he confronted President Xi about this when they were together in San Francisco this weekend, and what other steps the government is taking to deter this malign behaviour from occurring again.”

While Mr Albanese said he had spoken earlier in the day with Mr Xi and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the conclusion of the summit, he did not say whether he had raised the incident with them.

The divers were hurt while performing a mission in support of United Nations sanctions enforcement, with Defence Minister Richard Marles saying on Saturday the HMAS Toowoomba was in international waters inside of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone enroute to commence a scheduled port visit when the incident occurred.

pic.twitter.com/Zc7e9Jj9ub

— Richard Marles (@RichardMarlesMP) November 17, 2023

The Australian vessel had stopped to conduct diving operations in order to clear fishing nets that had become entangled around its propellers.

Mr Marles said HMAS Toowoomba was approached by a People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) destroyer, despite communications from Toowoomba which repeatedly advised that diving operations were being conducted.

Australian navy divers were forced to exit waters near Japan after a Chinese destroyer allegedly came too close and activated its hull-mounted sonar. Picture: Supplied / RAN

Mr Marles said that HMAS Toowoomba communicated its intention to conduct diving operations on normal maritime channels and used internationally recognised signals, but that the Chinese destroyer closed in towards the Australian navy vessel.

The Toowoomba again advised the PLA-N destroyer that diving operations were being conducted and requested the ship keep clear but, despite acknowledging Toowoomba’s communications, the Chinese vessel approached at a closer range.

It was then detected operating its hull-mounted sonar in a manner that posed a risk to the safety of the Australian divers who were forced to exit the water.

Mr Marles said this was unsafe and unprofessional conduct. Medical assessments conducted after the divers exited the water revealed they had sustained minor injuries — likely due to being subjected to the sonar pulses from the Chinese destroyer.

Mr Albanese has used the APEC leaders’ summit to talk up the normalisation of the relationship between Australia and Beijing, saying his talks with Mr Xi in San Francisco were positive. He rejected criticism from Peter Dutton over his extensive international travel schedule, saying that he was standing up for Australia’s national interest on the global stage.

Mr Albanese also welcomed an agreement to resume military to military dialogue between the US and China, arguing it was critical to ensure “guardrails” were put in place to avoid the outbreak of “real conflict” because of strategic miscalculations.

Mr Marles posted on social media that the government had “expressed its serious concerns to the Chinese government following an unsafe and unprofessional interaction with a People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer.”

The government said that Australia expected all countries, including China, to operate their militaries in a professional and safe manner.

It clarified that Defence had undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region for decades and did so in accordance with international law, exercising the right to freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters and airspace.

Government sources told The Australian the delay in making public the incident was because representations and objections were being made to the Chinese government, and that it had taken 5 days for the Morrison government to reveal, on February 22 2022, that an Australian maritime patrol aircraft had detected a PLA Navy vessel which was targeting the plane with a laser - a serious safety incident.The plane was illuminated by the laser five days earlier on February 17 while conducting a routine surveillance flight over Australia’s northern approaches.