The Chinese Navy warships were spotted sailing southeast of Sydney. Photo / Australian Department of Defence
The appearance of three Chinese warships so close to our borders has surprised and confused Australian and New Zealand officials.
The ships issued a live-fire warning off Australia’s east coast – forcing commercial flights to change course.
Then, on Saturday afternoon, sailors on a New Zealand Navy frigate saw live rounds being fired from a Chinese vessel’s main gun.
Beijing is now under scrutiny for not warning Australia or New Zealand of drills being performed in the Tasman Sea.
Defence Minister Judith Collins has said this country and Australia aren’t “particularly worried”.
“Nobody wants to overreact, no one wants to get too excitable, everybody wants to stay very calm and understand that while China is complying with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is always quite good to give people notice,” she told Newstalk ZB.
Australia’s Defence Minister, Richard Marles, said Beijing had “failed to give satisfactory reasons” for the “inadequate notice” given of Friday’s live-fire drill. Then on the other hand, China’s defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian said that Australia’s complaints were “hyped up” and “inconsistent with the facts”.
The University of Waikato’s Alexander Gillespie told The Front Page China isn’t breaking any international laws.
“The Law of the Sea, a 1980s convention from the United Nations, divides the ocean into the high seas, the territorial sea, which is 12 nautical miles, and then the exclusive economic zone, which is 200 nautical miles.
“If vessels are in the high sea, they have a considerable amount of freedom to transit and operate as they see fit, provided that they’re under a flag, which these Chinese vessels are.
“If they were in the territorial sea, they wouldn’t be able to conduct war games as they’re doing, but they’re not. So what they’re doing is completely legal and lawful,” he said.
All this comes as tensions between New Zealand and our Pacific neighbours are at an all-time high.
The Cook Islands signed a memorandum of understanding with China, including a five-year agreement for seabed mining. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown had been accused of “not properly consulting” New Zealand over the country’s China deal.
Gillespie said it’s clear the balance of power has been changing in our region for years.
“We should always be reaching out for areas of co-operation. We should always try to find and act in good faith. But at the same time, we need to sober up with what the risks are and what is changing in our environment.
“We need to be prepared to move closer towards our traditional friends and allies in the region,” he said.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about what China’s increased presence in our waters means.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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