Latest / The Front / Chinese spy ships in Australian waters: what’s Beijing up to?

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Chinese spy ships in Australian waters: what’s Beijing up to? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, April two, twenty twenty five. Disappointment for householders
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  Speaker 1: and Anthony Albanizi. As the Reserve Bank holds the cash
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  Speaker 1: rate at four point one percent, the bank is still
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  Speaker 1: assessing inflation and the threat of a global tariff war.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: That comes as labour backs and above inflation pay rise
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  Speaker 1: for two point nine million workers on awards and the
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  Speaker 1: minimum wage in a bid to ease cost of living pressures.
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  Speaker 1: The coalition says it will wipe out woke activism and
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  Speaker 1: ideological agendas in universities. It follows The Australian's revelations about
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  Speaker 1: law students being marked on their acknowledgments of country and
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  Speaker 1: ordered to examine their own privilege. Shadow Education Minister Sarah
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Henderson says a Dutton government would use the Education Standards
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  Speaker 1: Watchdog to examine course content. Those stories alive now at
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  Speaker 1: the Australian dot Com dot au. A Chinese spy ship
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  Speaker 1: in Australian waters doing what and why and how come
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  Speaker 1: Australia knew nothing about it? It's the latest flex by
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  Speaker 1: the People's Republic of China. On a mission to demonstrate
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  Speaker 1: its muscle. As Australian politics and the world enters a
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  Speaker 1: new era of uncertainty today, exactly how worried should we
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  Speaker 1: be about the Chinese navy apparently mapping our undersea chasms
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  Speaker 1: and cables. A so called Chinese spy ship is circumnavigating Australia,
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  Speaker 1: apparently mapping the seabed and the location of undersea cables.
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  Speaker 1: What exactly is Beijing up to? I spoke to Greg Sheridan,
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  Speaker 1: the Australian's Foreign editor. Greg zooms from analyzing one in
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  Speaker 1: national crisis to the next, and I caught him between
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  Speaker 1: assignments in The Australian's Melbourne newsroom. Now, Greg, what on
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  Speaker 1: earth is a Chinese spyship?
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  Speaker 2: Well, Claire, the ten su Ji Howe has been in
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  Speaker 2: and around the Australian coast. It's a dual purpose Chinese
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  Speaker 2: scientific research vessel, which does indeed do some scientific research.
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  Speaker 2: But China, more than any nation in the world, combines
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  Speaker 2: military and civilian capabilities. So what's doing south of South Australia.
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  Speaker 2: The logical thing that it's doing is that it is
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  Speaker 2: surveying our seabed and looking at a couple of things.
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  Speaker 2: One is where are our underwater sea cables? And it's
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  Speaker 2: also looking at the seabed and looking at the sea
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  Speaker 2: trenches and will report back to the Chinese Navy on
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  Speaker 2: what the best conditions are or its military submarines should
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  Speaker 2: they ever be sailing in those waters with evil intent
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  Speaker 2: towards Australia. This vessel is very large and it carries
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  Speaker 2: both manned and unmanned submarines. It could cut those submarine
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  Speaker 2: cables itself if it wanted to, but there's no evidence
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  Speaker 2: that it's going to do that.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Greg, what are the rules about being in waters
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  Speaker 1: like this? Is it just a matter of it would
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  Speaker 1: be good manners for the Chinese government to tell us
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  Speaker 1: if they were surveying the submarine landscape south of Australia
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  Speaker 1: or not. Are there no rules about this kind of activity?
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  Speaker 2: The rules are that if they're in our exclusive economic zone,
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  Speaker 2: they're supposed to give us notice and ask permission. There
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  Speaker 2: are reports that it has been in our exclusive economic zone,
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  Speaker 2: but it's not there at the moment when we're speaking,
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  Speaker 2: as far as we can tell, and it certainly hasn't
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  Speaker 2: given us notice or sought permission.
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  Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi has said he would rather the Chinese vessel
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  Speaker 1: wasn't there, Oh, that it wasn't there.
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  Speaker 3: But we live in circumstances where justice Australia has vessels
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  Speaker 3: in South China Sea and vessels in the Taiwan Strait
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  Speaker 3: and a range of areas. This vessel is there.
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  Speaker 1: But what can we take from the fact that the
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  Speaker 1: Australian government clearly hasn't been asked permission or even given
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  Speaker 1: notice of this.
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  Speaker 2: I think you've got to see it as a continuity
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  Speaker 2: of the Chinese military flotilla in February.
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  Speaker 4: About Chinese warships conducting live fire drills just a few
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  Speaker 4: hundred kilometers off our coast. Australia has lodged a diplomatic
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  Speaker 4: protest over the exercise, complaining at the lack of advanced notice.
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  Speaker 2: So it contained clearly naval vessels, a big destroyer which
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  Speaker 2: in other navies indeed might be called a cruiser with
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and twelve one hundred and sixteen vertical launch
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  Speaker 2: cells and a lot of missiles it can launch. And
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  Speaker 2: it was accompanied by a frigate and a tanker with
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  Speaker 2: fuel and probably, although we don't know, accompanied by a
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  Speaker 2: submarine as well. And now it conducted live fire exercises
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  Speaker 2: in the Tasman Sea, and it didn't give us notice
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  Speaker 2: about that. That's very dangerous because civilian aviation, civilian planes
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  Speaker 2: had to divert. And it did that not because there's
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  Speaker 2: any particular need for the Chinese navy to conduct live
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  Speaker 2: fire exercises in the Tasman Sea, but it wanted to
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  Speaker 2: humiliate Australia and show us whose boss. It's showing us
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  Speaker 2: that it can bring even its conventional navy to our shores,
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  Speaker 2: and it can bring naval vessels which are more powerful
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  Speaker 2: al most than the entire Australian surface Navy fleet. And
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  Speaker 2: it conducted the live fire exercise in the Tasman just
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  Speaker 2: so that we'd noticed, to make sure it got on
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  Speaker 2: the front pages and led the news bulletans and so on.
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  Speaker 2: It was rubbing our noses in the dirt. There was
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  Speaker 2: nothing we could do about it, and it didn't give
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  Speaker 2: us notice, it didn't ask permission, and our navy is
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  Speaker 2: currently so feeble that we only learned about it when
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  Speaker 2: a virgin pilot was warned off the area by the Chinese.
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  Speaker 2: We didn't learn about it through our own naval or
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  Speaker 2: surveillance resources. Then the next month it follows up with
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  Speaker 2: this very large spyship or research vessel. And it's doing
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  Speaker 2: this at a time when Australia is up for election
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  Speaker 2: and it knows that it's not going to get any
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  Speaker 2: response from the Albanesi government, which has adopted the fetal
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  Speaker 2: position on all these things. It just cringes itself into
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  Speaker 2: a tiny ball and hopes no one notices its existence.
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  Speaker 2: And it's also doing it at a time when it
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  Speaker 2: knows that Donald Trump has put the reliability of the
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  Speaker 2: US alliance under doubt. And in all of this there's
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  Speaker 2: no Australian response, no political response, no military response. I'm
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  Speaker 2: not suggesting we should fire on the chineseships or anything
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  Speaker 2: like that, but we can't even send an equivalent sort
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  Speaker 2: of ship to go in Bristle and show that we
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  Speaker 2: have a bit of muscle as well, because in fact,
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  Speaker 2: we don't have any muscle. And I think the Chinese
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  Speaker 2: are actually doing military things for military purposes, but they're
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  Speaker 2: also just demonstrating to us who is boss, and their
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  Speaker 2: lesson to us is tremble and obey.
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  Speaker 1: The Albanese government has spent a lot of time and
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  Speaker 1: effort and talked a lot about rebuilding relations with China.
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  Speaker 1: They're very much hoping to win back some of the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese voters who were disillusioned with Scott Morrison during the
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  Speaker 1: COVID era. Peter Dunton has been less effusive about China.
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  Speaker 1: What if anything, would the Chinese government want out of
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  Speaker 1: this election?
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  Speaker 2: I think they're getting everything they want. They want the
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  Speaker 2: Australian government to curl into a fetal ball and do
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  Speaker 2: nothing and say nothing and object to nothing that they do,
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  Speaker 2: and they want disarray in the US Australia alliance. The
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  Speaker 2: relationship with China. This really had very little to do
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  Speaker 2: with the Albanes government. China itself brought its wolf warrior
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  Speaker 2: diplomacy period to an end because it was obviously so counterproductive. Instead,
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  Speaker 2: I guess what, we're not enhancing Chinese national aims here,
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  Speaker 2: so we'll go back to our normal pre wool Waria
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  Speaker 2: mix of sometimes being threatening and sometimes being very sweet
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  Speaker 2: and keeping everyone off balanced that way. But now the
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  Speaker 2: Albanesi government is so determined to keep that so called
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  Speaker 2: stabilized relationship stabilized that it won't say boo to a
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  Speaker 2: goose when it comes to China, It won't call out
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  Speaker 2: any Chinese behavior and Albanesi quite bizarrely keeps saying we
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  Speaker 2: do the same things with China.
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  Speaker 3: What our task is to do is to make sure
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  Speaker 3: that we represent Australia's national interest. We do that each
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  Speaker 3: and every day, and I have every confidence, every confidence
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  Speaker 3: in our defense for us and our security agencies to
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  Speaker 3: do just so.
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  Speaker 2: As if you could compare the efforts of our puny
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  Speaker 2: toothless navy, which can barely sail all the way to
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  Speaker 2: China without getting roadside assistance, to the actions of what
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  Speaker 2: is now the biggest navy in the world. Now, if
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  Speaker 2: we had any brains as a name, we would quickly
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  Speaker 2: build our own deterrent capability, especially in our own shores,
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  Speaker 2: with missile ships, submarines, all the rest of it. But
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  Speaker 2: Albanisias said he's not going to increase defense spending at all,
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  Speaker 2: and Dunton still hasn't told us what he's going to
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  Speaker 2: do on defense.
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  Speaker 1: Spending coming up as China and Donald Trump shake up
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  Speaker 1: the world order, are we getting those nuclear submarines and
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  Speaker 1: will there be war over Taiwan? That's after the break. Theoretically,
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  Speaker 1: the Orcus deal with those long range nuclear submarines is
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  Speaker 1: still on track, although Donald Trump has quite alarmingly indicated
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  Speaker 1: that he might not even know what Aucus is or
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  Speaker 1: be enthusiastic about giving US Virginia class submarines. Can we
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  Speaker 1: assume that one of the goals of the PE the
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  Speaker 1: Republic of China is to discourage the Orcast alliance to
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  Speaker 1: prevent Australia getting those submarines.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we can assume that. So China has campaigned very
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  Speaker 2: strongly against UCUS and tried to turn Southeast Asia in
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  Speaker 2: particular against UCUS. But I'm very frustrated by Orcus. This
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  Speaker 2: will sound strange to you, clear, but August is really
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  Speaker 2: a side show in Australian defense. We don't get our
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  Speaker 2: fleet of eight nuclear submarines until the twenty fifties. We
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  Speaker 2: get a very old second hand boat sometime in the
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  Speaker 2: twenty thirties, which will really be a training boat more
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  Speaker 2: than anything, and we don't get much actual capability out
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  Speaker 2: of this for a long, long, long time. There's a
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  Speaker 2: terrible tendency in Australia to have phony debates about phony
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  Speaker 2: issues which have no consequence. I mean, nothing could be
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  Speaker 2: sillier than Albanezi and Dutton debating whether we're going to
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  Speaker 2: send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. You know, we've barely got
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  Speaker 2: three and a half soldiers serving as it is. We'll
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  Speaker 2: have a furious debate over that. We don't have a
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  Speaker 2: debate over all the things we need to do in
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  Speaker 2: our conventional defense force. Even if you had eight nuclear submarines,
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  Speaker 2: that's not a whole defense force. We've got no missile
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  Speaker 2: defense of our northern air bases. They could all be
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  Speaker 2: taken out one day by Chinese missiles. We've got no
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  Speaker 2: d mining vessels, so that China could mine all of
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  Speaker 2: our ports, including our submarine bases, on the first day
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  Speaker 2: of hostilities. We still believe that the Americans will always
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  Speaker 2: take care of it, they will always win, and they
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  Speaker 2: will never get tired of defending us. But that's a
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  Speaker 2: very dangerous assumption, and Donald Trump has qualified that. But
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  Speaker 2: also it's a kind of a bloodger's assumption. Anyway, Why
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  Speaker 2: should the Americans put their blood and treasure into the
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  Speaker 2: defense of Australia if Australia won't put its blood and
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  Speaker 2: treasure in our own defense. And we're not doing any
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  Speaker 2: of that.
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  Speaker 1: As China flexes its muscle in our own region, they are,
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  Speaker 1: of course, like everybody else in the world, trying to
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  Speaker 1: work out what the Trump administration will do next, and
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  Speaker 1: one of the biggest questions for them is what would
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  Speaker 1: the Trump administration do if China took Taiwan reclaimed what
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  Speaker 1: it considers to be its own territory of Taiwan.
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  Speaker 5: China has launched large scale war exercises around the self
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  Speaker 5: ruled island of Taiwan. The Chinese Army, Navy, and Air
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  Speaker 5: Force sent planes and nineteen warships to surround Taiwan in
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  Speaker 5: a drill aimed at practicing a total air and sea
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  Speaker 5: blockade of the territory.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think is the latest thinking about that, Greg,
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  Speaker 1: Do we have an idea of whether Trump has walked
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  Speaker 1: away from the defense of Taiwan.
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  Speaker 2: It's very hard to read Trump, and very often it's
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  Speaker 2: impossible to answer a sensible question like that because Trump
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  Speaker 2: himself doesn't make a decision until he makes a decision.
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  Speaker 2: So Trump is generally giving us the idea that he's
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  Speaker 2: not going to go to war to defend anybody else.
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  Speaker 2: So that's bad news for Indo pacificsecurity because it's only
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  Speaker 2: the American deterrant, which ultimately China has to take notice of.
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  Speaker 2: But as against that, you can't be sure that Trump
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  Speaker 2: won't ultimately defend Taiwan. I mean, Trump certainly will not
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  Speaker 2: want to be humiliated by China, and if he lost Taiwan,
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  Speaker 2: that would be a humiliation. Secondly, the entire American military
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  Speaker 2: establishment is geared around helping Taiwan, so he has to
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  Speaker 2: go against that, which he might do in certain circumstances,
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  Speaker 2: but that's a very big thing. Thirdly, both the Congress
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  Speaker 2: and American public opinion is extremely hawkish on China at
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  Speaker 2: the moment, and Trump is more affected by public opinion
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  Speaker 2: than he lets on. And then finally he's telling all
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  Speaker 2: the allies you just can't rely on America to do
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  Speaker 2: everything for you all the time. All of the Western
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  Speaker 2: Europeans are increasing their defense budget very significantly. The only ally,
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  Speaker 2: of course, that's not going to do a damn thing
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  Speaker 2: is Australia. Because we live in this kind of fantasy land.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we live in a Tolstoy novel War and Peace,
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  Speaker 2: but we behave like we're in a Jerry Seinfeld sitcom.
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  Speaker 2: You know, when nothing happens, nothing matters, and everything's a joke.
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  Speaker 1: Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor. Wednesday sees a
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  Speaker 1: big decision in the High Court of Australia on the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Albaneze government's ongoing bid to deport non citizens who've been
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: convicted of crimes. Among those who've had their deportations halted
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: by the courts are a man who exposed himself to
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: a ten year old child in a public toilet and
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a convicted drug trafficker. You can follow the High Court's
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  Speaker 1: decision live at the Australian dot com dot au