Over two days last week, Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Naval Task Group 107 launched live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea without any warning to the Australian or New Zealand governments. The exercises were directly under the flight path of one of the busiest routes across the Tasman, a peaceful body of water far from China. As a precaution, for three days all flights across the Tasman were diverted to avoid the firing zone.
The live-fire exercises were a display to show that China’s military forces could cut off the air and sea links between Australia and New Zealand at any time, with no warning.
China’s aggressive act is a shot across the bow to New Zealand and Australia, but also to the countries of the wider Pacific. It is a demonstration of China’s growing sea power in the Southwest Pacific and meant to normalize the PLA presence there.
The PLAN live-fire exercises were not merely a tit-for-tat response to Australia or New Zealand’s periodic freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait, as some commentators have claimed. They were designed to send the message loud and clear that China wants to rule the waves in the Pacific and to force Australia and New Zealand to accept the new normal.
In essence, China is challenging the existing strategic setup. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping calls the new China-centered maritime order he wants to impose a “community of oceanic destiny.”
China is now gaslighting the governments of Australia and New Zealand about the live-fire exercises and presence of an uninvited, hostile naval presence in their near seas. The Global Times, a CCP-owned tabloid paper aimed at foreign audiences, singled out Australia for overreacting, at the same time as telling New Zealand and Australia to get used to the regular presence of the PLA in their region.
China frequently singles out Australia for criticism, while taking a softer public line on New Zealand, as Chinese officials have frequently claimed that New Zealand’s relationship with China is a model for other Western governments. It is a divide-and-rule tactic, which more than a few New Zealand governments have fallen for in the past.
A Show of Force
The CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily revealed that the task force – consisting of the Zunyi, a Type 055 stealth guided-missile destroyer; the Hengyang, a Type 054A guided-missile frigate; and Weishanshu, a Type 903 replenishment ship – incorporated both naval and air forces, which were in the area to undertake “training exercises on the high seas” and “blue-water drills” in the Pacific. The authorization to conduct such an exercise would have come from Xi, who leads the CCP’s Central Military Commission.
Other Chinese media sources acknowledged that the transit of the naval force and live-fire exercises were intended to signal the beginning of the “normalization of the deployment” of PLA forces in the South Pacific.
Military vessels are entitled to innocent passage, even in the territorial seas of other states, as long as their transit is not prejudicial to the peace, good order, or security of the coastal state. There is no international law that regulates military vessels conducting live-fire exercises in international waters, but it is the norm to alert nearby states in advance so they can take preventative action. China is using these international rules as a shield for what can only be interpreted as an act of intimidation: extra slow transits of a naval group in the EEZs of the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Australia, as well as live-fire drills that disrupted New Zealand and Australian air traffic.
After the live-fire exercise, the PLAN Naval Task Group 107 spent several days in the Tasman Sea, moving in the direction of New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The ships have now changed course and are back in the Australian EEZ, heading south toward Tasmania. Based on the current trajectory, they seem likely to traverse Tasmania’s South East Cape and head up along Australia’s western flank into the Indian Ocean before they return to China.
A map from Chinese outlet Tencent News shows the past and projected course of the PLAN’s Naval Task Group 107.
Chinese naval analysts noted back in 2007 that Australia’s South East Cape provides a useful alternative route for Chinese vessels. The PLAN Task Force Group’s itinerary is a deliberate poke in the eye to Australia’s north-focused security strategy, which has long over-invested in defense capabilities in Australia’s northern approaches, while relying on New Zealand’s depleted naval forces to protect the Tasman, and France to periodically patrol Southern Australian waters.
PLAN Naval Task Group 107 has now gone farther south than any PLA naval flotilla since 1985, when two aged PLAN vessels travelled through the Pacific and on to the Southern Ocean, delivering a team of scientists to set up China’s first Antarctic base on King George Island. During that voyage, the PLAN’s first ever blue water expedition, one of the two vessels broke down en route.
The current trip demonstrates that China now has a complete, fully self-sufficient blue water logistics support chain. This is a major breakthrough in PLAN sea power. The group of ships have transited 800 kilometers, coming via the Philippine’s Busilan Strait, passing through Papua New Guinea (PNG) waters and the Coral Sea, and on to Australia’ Eastern coast board. They travelled along Australia’s Eastern coast for 10 days before the live fire exercises were launched.
China now has the world’s largest navy, with 234 vessels to the U.S. Navy’s 219. The U.S. fleet is dated, and it would take decades to ramp up production. China clearly has the capacity to rival U.S. military supremacy in the Pacific. Combined, Australia’s and New Zealand’s naval fleets consist of only 12 vessels.
Since 2024, China has also been using its People’s Armed Police Force Coast Guard vessels to establish a regular gray-zone presence across the Western, Central and North Pacific Fisheries Commission Convention Area – in other words the whole of the Pacific. China’s maritime security forces are legally allowed to board any foreign fishing vessels on the high seas in the first, second, and third island chains. China now has the third-largest marine security presence in the Pacific, and all of these vessels would be under the PLA’s command in a time of war.
China is preparing to station a permanent presence in the Southwest Pacific and wants the other military powers of the Pacific – Australia, New Zealand, France, the United States – to know there is nothing they can do about it. The PLAN has demonstrated over several years that it is blue-water capable. China has built dual-use port and airport facilities in Vanuatu and the Solomons, with more planned in Kiribati and the Cook Islands.
Options for Australia and New Zealand
The Australian and New Zealand governments are in an awkward position when it comes to responding to China’s show of force. Both have military cooperation agreements with China. There has been a steady build-up of PLAN and PLA Air Force visits to New Zealand and Australia over 20 years, many of them facilitated and encouraged by the Australian and New Zealand governments as part of their military diplomacy and security relationship with China.
In both 2013, and 2017, a PLAN Task Force Group, consisting of two frigates and a supply vessel, was hosted in Auckland harbor. The Hengyang 54a, which is part of the current PLAN Task Force Group 107 traversing the Tasman, was on the 2017 visit to New Zealand. In 2016 and 2019, PLAN vessels conducted training exercises in New Zealand’s internal waters. In 2013, Australia hosted a PLAN frigate as part of an international naval exercise. In 2019, a three-vessel PLAN task force were hosted in Sydney harbor for three days; they traversed Australia’s Indian Ocean flank and South East Cape to get there.
Both Australia and New Zealand’s defense relationship with China has cooled in response to Xi Jinping’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy. The list of concerns about China’s behavior is long.
Along with China’s actions, another unexpected development has been worrying to observe: there has been a chilling silence from the White House about China’s live-fire exercises in the Tasman. Under the ANZUS Treaty, the United States is obligated to defend Australia if comes under attack. The U.S. suspended New Zealand from ANZUS after the passing of New Zealand’s 1987 anti-nuclear legislation, which barred U.S. nuclear–powered vessels from port calls in the country.
In a plot twist, though, on the afternoon of February 25, a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Minnesota, appeared in Western Australia for a regular port visit. Australia military personnel told journalists that the PLAN Naval Task Group 107 would likely have had nuclear-powered submarine support for some of its voyage.
Even so, Australia and New Zealand have appeared very isolated in the last few days. Now is the time to reach out to other like-minded small and medium powers who also rely on the rules-based international order for their security, and to invest significantly in defense capabilities.
We have entered a dangerous new era. The events of the last week will be looked back on as a turning point for the Southwest Pacific. It is a moment of truth for Australian and New Zealand political leaders, as their naïve and foolish engagement policies and under-investment in defense are being exposed. The actions the two governments take in response will be crucial to the Pacific’s long-term security.
