The Australian government revealed a week ago that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea and were approaching northeast Australia.
Defense Minister Richard Marles said Thursday that the Chinese ships — the naval frigate Hengyang, cruiser Zunyi and replenishment vessel Weishanhu — were “off the east coast of Australia.”
Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, was 150 nautical miles (278 kilometers) east of Sydney.
“There is no doubt that this is, not unprecedented, but an unusual event,” Marles [said].
Marles said Australian navy ships and air force planes were monitoring the Chinese ships’ movements through international waters that are in Australia’s exclusive economic zone, the area beyond its territorial waters where a nation has exclusive economic rights.
[…]
Vessels navigating international waters is news? I don’t imagine they are pursuing any economic activities with those vessels. Freedom of navigation is supposed to be some all-important principle, so I’m not sure what the story is here.
Unless they do some A/B testing on their site, it doesn’t read “vessels” … it’s something else.
I said vessels, which means ships. This is common for military vessels to go navigate international waters where it may be contentious to do so all in the name of freedom of navigation. Three ships, one being a supply vessel, do not pose a significant threat to Australia. A carrier group might be cause for concern, but this really isn’t.
Fully agree with you here. Australian naval vessels go into waters off the south China coast often enough.
