Political brouhaha breaks out over China’s Tasman Sea war games, as experts send warning on Beijing’s conduct

Australia’s maritime vulnerabilities have been exposed and must be addressed, experts say, after defence officials confirmed they only learned of China’s intent to conduct wargames in the Tasman Sea from a commercial pilot 40 minutes into the firing window.

Appearing before Senate estimates on Wednesday, defence chief David Johnston confirmed that a Virgin Australia pilot had alerted Air Services Australia at 9.58am last Friday after they picked up a radio broadcast from the Chinese naval task group of their plans to conduct a live firing exercise between 9.30am and 3pm.

The agency alerted Defence’s Joint Operations Command around 10 minutes later, about 10.10am.

New Zealand’s navy had been shadowing the three-vessel flotilla at the time and also raised the alarm, but that message was not conveyed to Australia until 11.01am.

Admiral Johnston said the lack of notice provided by China was “inadequate”.

“It doesn’t demonstrate the best practice that we would expect from mariners operating in that region, so it sure falls short of the standard that we apply to ourselves,” he said.

Pressed on whether China’s behaviour in the last week could be described as “provocative”, Admiral Johnston said it was “irresponsible” and “disruptive”.

Defence officials told senators best practice was to notify of planned activity was about 24 to 48 hours in advance, and to steer clear of civil aviation corridors.

Maritime security expert Jennifer Parker said China’s failure to give any advance notice was “not normal”. She said while Australia could not expect Beijing to request permission, the Government was “right to be concerned” about the lack of warning window.

“Normally, at least a few hours before your intention to conduct a serial you would make a warning, which you would continue to do at the start of the serial and then every 30 minutes or so,” she said.

Ms Parker warned there was a danger with over-egging firing serials, which happen all the time on the high seas, because it risked handing China “propaganda” when Australia deploys.

Aviation officials had told the Senate earlier this week that the Chinese activity had prompted 49 flights to be diverted, and Ms Parker said that indicated the PLAN had been operating “far too close” to a major civilian air lane.

China has said the People’s Liberation Army issued repeated safety alerts ahead of the drills, and that the country is “strongly dissatisfied” with Canberra’s response.

While there were no reports of live firing reported on Friday, the PLA-N conducted another round of exercises on Saturday. That time, they gave ten minutes notice the cruiser was observed firing its main gun.

The Government has maintained China did not breach international law, but have made political, diplomatic and military representations about the short notice period.

But shadow home affairs minister James Paterson put to officials that “It’s not really notification of an upcoming exercise if we only find out about it after it has commenced, is it?”

He said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needed to “stop running defence for the People’s Liberation Army Navy”.

“He should show strength and stand up for Australia by publicly calling out this provocative, reckless, and intimidatory behaviour from the PLAN,” he told The Nightly.

He also called on the PM to stop “baselessly comparing our operations in international waters to the PLAN’s behaviour in the Tasman Sea”.

“As Admiral Johnston explained today, we do not conduct ourselves in this unprofessional and disruptive manner, and Anthony Albanese should stop equating the two,” he said.

He had earlier accused Mr Albanese of misleading the public in his statements that China had provided advance notification through military channels.

The PM said on Friday that “notice was given”, on Saturday that “notification did occur”, and on Tuesday that the “ADF was certainly aware” after being questioned about testimony a Virgin pilot had been the first to alert officials.

On Wednesday, Mr Albanese indicated Air Services Australia and Defence channels had been alerted at around the same time.

Defence officials had told estimates that was likely to be the case, but Senator Paterson said the PM needed to be honest and “admit we were never notified”.

The Coalition has also accused the PM of either deliberately misleading the public, or simply not being across the brief. Senator Paterson had been unable to ascertain at what time Mr Albanese had first been briefed about

As of Wednesday morning the flotilla, made up of a Jiangkai II frigate, a Renhai cruiser, and a tanker, was tracked 250km southwest of Hobart, in Australia’s Economic Exclusion Zone. Defence officials say it could pass through the Great Australian Bight and are watching it closely.

Officials could not confirm nor deny reports, aired by the ABC, that a Chinese nuclear submarine could be accompanying the task group.

“I don’t know whether there is a submarine with them, it is possible, task groups occasionally do deploy with submarines but not always,” Admiral Johnson said.

“I can’t be definitive whether that’s the case.”

The presence of the taskgroup has highlighted lingering flashpoints in the much-improved bilateral relationship between Canberra and Beijing.

Defence secretary Greg Moriarty said while the nature of the Chinese mission remained unknown, one aim could be to gather intelligence.

“The Chinese are signalling, they are practicing and rehearsing, and they are collecting,” he said.

“China has made clear it is growing blue-water naval capability. It is claiming certainly regional and global interests as a maritime power and I expect they will wish to continue to be present in an increasing number of international waterways in the years ahead.”

Ms Parker said the flotilla’s presence is intended to both demonstrate China’s ability to deploy, and play on Australia’s vulnerabilities in the maritime domain.

“They are trying to send a message and make us vulnerable,” she said.

She said the Government should be thinking about the PLAN’s presence “in terms of how vulnerable we are”.

“If, in the event of a crisis or conflict, China tried to cut off our fuel supply or other elements of maritime trade, they would have the capability to do that,” she said.

“We need to think about how we protect our vulnerabilities and how do we improve our capabilities.”

She said that could be done by lifting the defence budget to rapidly expand and modernise the small, ageing navy not equipped nearly well enough for the most significant strategic circumstances since World War Two.

“We don’t have time to wait,” she said.

Defence’s spending came under the microscope hours after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to boost defence spending to reach 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027.

Back in Canberra, officials confirmed to estimates on Wednesday that defence spending as a share of GP would reach 2.33 per cent by 2033-34 – falling short of the 2.4 per cent promised by the Government last year.

Shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie said Labor’s “shocking backflip is true to form”.