Straya rattles saber on Chinese islands

Advertisement

From the WSJ:

Australian defense planners are looking at the possibility of a naval sail-through close to China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea, in case the government decides to follow its close ally the U.S. in testing Beijing’s territorial claims.

“Australia has been looking at options,” said one official in Australia’s military familiar with operational planning.

…Defense Minister Marise Payne, confirmed that plans for possible naval operations or flights by maritime patrol aircraft had been prepared, though said there is no immediate intent to put them into play. “At this stage, it’s only been looking at what we could do,” the second official said. The military had been looking at options including a sail-through for months, the person said, as tensions in the South China Sea intensified.

Australia has two naval frigates in the South China Sea region—the HMAS Arunta and HMAS Stuart—which have been scheduled to carry out exercises alongside Chinese warships over the next week, as a naval confidence-building exercise.

Peter Jennings, the executive director of the government-backed security think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said he expected most U.S. regional allies would follow with their own exercises to assert freedom of navigation, although few would telegraph movements in advance for operational security reasons.

“I think it is now critical we follow this up so that we don’t just leave it to the United States on what is an issue worrying countries from the Philippines to Vietnam,” said Mr. Jennings, a former Australian intelligence analyst.

And how is this in Australia’s national interest, I ask ya?

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.