If we panic about these Chinese ships, Xi wins the propaganda war

The Chinese naval task group’s deployment in our region is clearly aimed at sending a message and testing Australia’s responses – not only on the military front, but socially and politically. The worst misstep would be to overreact and hand China a propaganda win that could undermine Australia’s legitimate military activities in the South China Sea and North-East Asia.

Chinese frigate Hengyang was spotted 150 nautical miles off the coast of Sydney.Credit: ADF

Australia has long thrived on the freedom and prosperity we’ve enjoyed since World War II. Our distance from Europe’s and the Middle East’s flashpoints made conflict seem remote. We’ve ingrained the notion that while our people fight in distant conflicts, the threat never reaches home.

Yet the deployment of a Chinese naval task group off our east coast has exposed our vulnerabilities as a maritime nation reliant on trade. While this reality is felt acutely, our proper response is to invest in the ships, aircraft and submarines needed to safeguard our maritime interests – not to manufacture a crisis that undermines our societal resilience and political capacity to respond to genuine challenges.

Australia isn’t on a major trade route or a transit point. Naval task groups rarely operate in our region – unless they’re visiting Australia – so a Chinese task group is especially notable. Deployed more than 8000 kilometres from China’s coast, this three-ship task group – including one of the world’s most advanced warships – was clearly meant to send a message.

Under international law, China’s warships can operate on the high seas (beyond 200 nautical miles from our coast). They can also conduct exercises within Australia’s exclusive economic zone (up to 200 nautical miles from our coast). They can even operate in our territorial sea (within 12 nautical miles of our coast), provided their transit is continuous, expeditious and does not disrupt Australia’s good order. This isn’t legal semantics – it’s a fundamental aspect of the freedom of the seas that Australia regularly exercises through our naval deployments.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the G20 summit last November.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

While it may be surprising to see naval task groups conducting live-fire exercises in our region, warships – including Australia’s – regularly do so on long deployments for training, maintaining skills or myriad other reasons. This is simply what warships do.

China’s gunnery firing took place on the high seas, about 640 kilometres (340 nautical miles) from our coast – the distance from Canberra to Melbourne. China is well within its rights to conduct such exercises without informing Australia or New Zealand.

While no international law requires it, best practice from having undertaken many gunnery firings at sea is that warships maintain at least 18 kilometres (10 nautical miles) from known civilian air routes during live-fire exercises. Air Services Australia reported that 49 aircraft had to be diverted because of the Chinese warships’ firing exercise. Clearly, these warships were too close to these flight paths.

This diversion is a nuisance, but aircraft are routinely diverted for various reasons, and there’s no evidence they were at risk. The Chinese warships’ radars would have continuously tracked the aircraft, ensuring they stopped the gunnery serial if the aircraft approached their safety zone – just as any responsible warship would.

Warships should also issue warnings to civilian aircraft and vessels several hours in advance – and at regular intervals – during the exercise. It remains unclear how early Chinese warships issued this warning, but we know from Senate estimates that it was first heard by a Virgin Airlines aircraft 30 minutes after the warships began their drills.

The Chinese warships’ close proximity to civilian air routes – and their apparent failure to provide timely warnings – deserves diplomatic rebuke. However, their presence and live-fire exercise on the high seas do not.

The freedom of the seas is fundamental to our security as a maritime trading nation. Claims that China’s warships shouldn’t be operating in our exclusive economic zone or conducting live-fire exercises on the high seas undermines this principle, giving China a propaganda win to challenge our necessary deployments to North-East Asia and the South China Sea – routes that carry two-thirds of our maritime trade.

This is not a crisis. Treating it as one – with over-the-top indignation – diminishes our capacity to tackle real crises as the region deteriorates. Moreover, since this deployment was meant to test us, it signals to China that we lack societal resilience and a genuine perspective on what is a threat.

If the Chinese naval task group deployment is meant to signal that they can operate in our region, sustain a presence and threaten our critical sea supply lines, how should we respond to the vulnerability we’ve felt these past two weeks? We must respond by heeding the message – mitigating our vulnerabilities and investing in our maritime capability. At our most challenging strategic moment since World War II, our current surface combatant fleet is the smallest and oldest we’ve had since 1950.

Our warships have limited endurance at sea due to inadequate numbers of replenishment ships, and our ability to protect sea lanes from mines is also limited – to name but a few of our challenges. We must address this and swiftly, and that means having a hard look at our defence spending.

At only 2 per cent of GDP, defence spending falls well short of our Cold War average of 2.7 per cent. It’s also time to ramp up our industrial capacity and engage in genuine discussions about societal and industrial mobilisation. That means, if we were to be in a conflict, how would we mobilise the civilian population to support our forces and home defence, and how would we mobilise industries to produce what we need to sustain the conflict?

We must respond by enhancing our preparedness and military capability, not by handing China a propaganda victory that undermines our ability to tackle real crises and the fundamental principle of freedom of the seas.

While conflict in our region isn’t inevitable, the threat is real and demands a measured response underpinned by preparedness, investment and partnerships. Warships have the right to freedom of navigation. Live gunnery firings are common. Overreaction and panic will only undermine our efforts.

Jennifer Parker is a defence and national security expert associate at the ANU’s National Security College. She has served for more than 20 years as a warfare officer in the Royal Australian Navy.