Australia and New Zealand ships and pad aircraft have been monitoring the Chinese fleet while they have been traveling down the coast of Australia. Off the coast.
So we saw a float tiller of three ships, a large destroyer, very new vessel of the type fifty five, the ren High class. We also saw a frigate and then a supply ship alongside to keep the destroyers and the frigate fueled and armed and fed.
Sam Rogavin is director of the Lower Institute's International Security Program.
Over the past.
Month, he's been watching as a floatiller of Chinese Navy ships sailed around Australia. They fired live shots and disrupted flights out of Sydney Airport.
It is the case that the notice was given. When that occurs, airlines are notified and stay out of the area air.
It was international waters and the Chinese were doing nothing illegal, but nevertheless it was pretty provocative in my view and could easily have been avoided if the Chinese had wanted to. It did excite a lot of reaction in the Australian media.
Why is the Chinese Navy here and should we be worried?
Minister Anthony Aberanezi has assured the nation a flotilla of Chinese warships has been closely watched. China's ambassador to Australia says there is no need for his country to apologize that they did give.
The voyage came at a time when Australia's ability to rely on the United States is questionable and raises concerns about whether we're prepared to handle our own security in the event of an attack. From Schwartz Media, I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM today Sam Rogavin on why the Chinese military circled Australia and what we should do about it. It's Friday, March twenty one. So China set one of the largest warships in the world, equipped with guided missiles,
to perform drills of Australia's coast. So should we be scared.
No, we shouldn't. We don't need to be scared.
But nevertheless, because I think this is so novel, we'd never seen anything like this before.
It excited a lot of reaction in Australia.
But I mean, if you're Taiwan or if you're Japan, for instance, this stuff is commonplace and it barely creates a headline, and Australia does it all the time. We often sail far to the north, and our navy sometimes sails through the Taiwan straight for instance, So we shouldn't be too put off by that, you know. The Opposition defense spokesman Andrew Hasty referred to this as gunboat diplomacy,
and that's true. This is a signal from the Chinese military that they have a bluewater navy and they're prepared to flex their muscles in our region.
This is gunboat diplomacy.
But gunboat diplomacy really only works if the nation that's being coerced is so worried about the force that can be used against it that it actually kind of gives in, that caves in. But the Chinese destroyer and the flotilla
can't actually project overwhelming force against Australia. It carries a few dozen missiles that could destroy a few buildings on Australian soil in wartime, but that's about it, and that's not a huge return given the expense and the risk that China would be taking if it ever used a fleet like this in wartime. And by risk, of course, I mean the fact that Australia is actually quite capable of sinking a flotilla like this. We have fairly advanced capabilities.
I'd argue we need more and we need a better focus on anti ship capabilities, but we do have a very modern air force that's capable of presenting a serious threat to a flotilla of this kind.
So what's the message China is actually trying to send? I mean, are these acts of provocation or the acts of defense? What is the message they're actually trying to send some of these countries, including Australia.
Well, again, we do this sort of thing ourselves, so it's worth starting an answer to that question by asking, well, what is it that we are trying to do when we do this? Now, the situations are not quite analogous. One of the things that Australia is trying to do when we send warships into the South China Sea, for instance, is to make a legal point that China's claims to those waters has been Chinese territorial waters are wrong and that we don't accept them.
Now in case of.
The Chinese flow tiller sailing off the coast of Australia, nobody has any legal dispute with those waters. So China's not trying to make a legal point. It's more a point about one is capabilities. We can do this, and so we choose to do it. And secondly, I think to send a message that the Pacific Ocean is no longer an American lake. That ever since the Cold War, America has been a dominant maritime power in East Asia, and China is telling us that actually that time is over.
Now. If that's the case, that America is no longer dominant in Asia, that's obviously significant for Australia. That's happening at a time when Donald Trump is walking away from some of America's traditional allies. We've seen it most recently with how Trump is handling Ukraine and Zelenski. So what do you think this means for Australia and how much we can rely on the United States now?
Well, actually I prefer to start in a slightly different place, which is to separate this from Donald Trump and what we can see, actually if we take a slightly longer historical view, is now thirty plus years of evidence that the United States is not fully committed to its allies
in Asia. Certainly rhetorically it remains committed. Every US president since the end of the Cold War has talked about the importance of Asia for American prosperity, and since the George W. Bush administration, they've talked increasingly about China as an adversary. But one thing that hasn't happened is that the United States has backed up that rhetoric with, for instance,
actual military forces. So the military forces that America has committed to Asia are now roughly the same in number as they were in nineteen ninety one.
Trump, I think is important.
Of course, I don't mean to dismiss this presidency, but really Trump is not so much changing that picture. It's just accelerating the relative decline of American power in Asia.
But I do think that.
The direction of American policy, whether it's more aggressive or actually quite accommodationist, that has really serious.
Implications for Australia.
In both cases, I think it means Australia has a good argument for behaving more independently.
Coming up after the break, what Australia needs to defend ourselves?
Hi Ruby Jones. Here tell stories that need to be told. Our journalism is founded on trust and independence, and now we're increasing our coverage every Saturday until the election will bring you an extra episode to break down the biggest political moments of the week. If you enjoy seven Am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at seven am podcast dot com dot are you ford slash support. Thanks for listening and supporting our work.
Say've outlined this long term trend when it comes to America's diminishing commitment to maintaining a strong presence in the Pacific, long before Donald Trump arrived in the White House. But what have we seen from this administration when it comes to a stance on China.
Well, it's not clear how this administration views the contest with China, because there are a group within the Trump administration known as the prioritizers. These are people like Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, Getty Vance, the Vice President, and Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, who say, look, America is over committed in Europe and the Middle East. We simply can't afford to do all that anymore. We have to focus on China, which is the main adversary.
The Communist Party of China, is leads to PRC, is the most potent and dangerous neuropure adversary this nation has ever confronted. They have elements that the Soviet Union never possessed. They are a technological adversary and competitor, an industrial competitor, and economic competitor, geopolitical competitor, a scientific competitor now and every realm is an extraordiny.
And yet there's also another group that simply not that committed to competition against China. They certainly feel there needs to be a competition with China on an economic level, but whether they have any commitment to the strategic contest with China for military and diplomatic supremacy, that's an opening question. And that group, I would argue, is headed by President Trump himself. I just don't think there's any evidence that he sees value in staging some kind of Cold War
style military strategic contests against China. Either way, I think Australia needs to posture for a future in which we have to behave more independently.
We have to be capable of strong independent action.
Okay, so what does that look like?
Well, I read a book in twenty twenty three that recommended what I called an Ekidney strategy, and basically what it calls for is, in a way, I kind of return to an earlier view that dates from the late nineteen seventies of Australian defense, where we basically we consecrated this idea of defending Australia by defending the air and maritime.
Approaches to Australia. That's an idea that.
Went slightly out of fashion during the Global War on Terrorism, and now in the era of Orcus, it's actually been effectively abandoned as well, because August the Nuclear Submarine project is an attempt to not defend Australia's air and sea approaches, but to defend Australia by essentially supporting America's efforts to uphold its preferred order in the Asian region by operating submarines that can sail thousands of kilometers away and even
fire missiles onto the Chinese land mass. So I want to return to that earlier doctrine where we focus on the air and sea approaches to Australia and where we basically make it impossible for any adversary to operate its ships and its aircraft safely in those areas. And that's an achievable task even in an era where we can have far less confidence in America as an ally, Australia can independently defend itself if it adopts any kidney strategy.
And so what kind of escalation in our capability we need just to defend Australia as a land mass alone.
Well, a lot more capability to shoot down aircraft and sink ships. That's basically it. Now, there are a lot of ways to do that. Talking point in Australian defense policy. The perennial debate is submarines, and submarines are very useful for sinking ships, but they're not the only way to do it. There are much cheaper ways to achieve the same effect, and we do that by purchasing a lot of highly advanced and stealthy missiles that can be mounted
on aircraft and can be mounted on diesel submarines. We should also be focusing on mine warfare, and we need capabilities to defend ourselves against incoming missiles, not just slow cruise missiles, but fast hypersonic missiles or ballistic missiles. Our northern bases are not well protected in that regard. But again, with those kind of improvements and with that refocus, I think it's perfectly possible for Australia to mount a plausible defense even without American help.
So with that in mind, how would you categorize our approach at this point? What are your thoughts in orcus since specifically our plan to have nuclear submarines as part of our capability.
I tend to think that from middle power such as Australia, when we pursue a strategy like that, we are escalating, and when you escalate against the great power, you lose. We're far better off pursuing capabilities that keep any dispute or any conflict at a much lower level, and we leave it up to the adversary to escalate if they choose to. So what we should be focusing on is an ability to absorb punishment if we have to, and
to protect the continent from military attack. But we I think it's counterproductive to pursue capabilities that actually threaten China's territory and its key interests. I think Australia has learned some appropriate lessons here from the economic pressure campaign that we suffered from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two. And in that campaign, despite all the pressure that China app by imposing tariffs and other sanctions against our exports.
Australia never retaliated.
Our exports were able to find new markets for their products and so effectively the Chinese pressure campaign failed, and at a certain point when our government changed in twenty twenty two, the Chinese recognized this and their policy changed. So I think the appropriate lesson from that is you don't need to escalate, You don't need to make a lot of fuss. You just need to build a strong defense with an ability to absorb pressure.
Sam, thanks so much for your time and for your analysis.
Thanks Daniel, appreciating.
Also in the news, Peter Dutton and Anthony Alberonizi have both vowed to protect the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme, saying medicines on the scheme will never become a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with the US President Donald Trump. The assurance has come after a powerful drugs lobby in the US asked President Trunk to put tariffs on Australian pharmaceutical imports to the US, arguing the PBS is discriminatory and threatens billions of dollars and lost sales for American drug makers.
At least six Australian universities have had American research funding paused or counseled since Donald Trump took office. The ABC has reported Australian University has received about four hundred million dollars in US government funding last year, making it Australia's largest research partner. According to the ABC, American government staff are now flagging all research grants with a foreign partner, meaning they will be reviewed and could be canceled. I'm
Daniel James. This is seven AM, and tomorrow I'm bringing you a fascinating conversation with polster and political strategist Cos Samaris. He lays out exactly how polling works and which group of Australians is ultimately going to decide the outcome of the upcoming election. See it then
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