EXCLUSIVE
China has moved weaponry onto artificial islands that it is building in
contested areas of the South China Sea, adding to the risks of a confrontation
with the United States and its regional security partners including Australia.
Australian officials are
concerned that China could also introduce long-range radar, anti-aircraft guns
and regular surveillance flights that will enable it to project military power
across a maritime expanse which include some of Australia's busiest trading
lanes.
Fairfax understands that these
concerns are prompting discussions in senior military circles that could lead
to Australian naval officers and air force pilots embarking on "freedom of
navigation" missions to demonstrate that Canberra does not accept
Beijing's hardening claims.
The options, which include
fly-throughs, sail-throughs and exercises involving various regional partners,
are expected to crystallise after officials deliver a personal briefing to
Prime Minister Tony Abbott during the next fortnight.
Already,
diplomats have dropped "talking points" about Australia not taking
sides in the multi-layered territorial contest, which Chinese officials have
used as evidence of Australian support.
More
substantially, Australia's intelligence agencies are upgrading the strategic
threat assessments which will inform the Abbott government's first Defence
White Paper, according to government sources. Late on Wednesday,
Australia's top defence official, Dennis Richardson, brought Canberra's growing
concerns into public view by telling a Sydney forum that China's
"unprecedented" land reclamations raise questions of
"intent" and risks of "miscalculation".
"It is
legitimate to ask the purpose of the land reclamation – tourism appears
unlikely," said Mr Richardson, delivering the annual Blamey Oration at the
New South Wales state Parliament.
Given the size and modernisation
of China's military, the use by China of land reclamation for military purposes
would be of particular concern," he said.
The Defence Secretary's comments
were the most detailed and forthright from a senior Australian official since
China began building its audacious network of airstrips, deep-water ports and
other military-capable infrastructure on previously submerged reefs in the
Spratly Islands last year.
China says the new sand islands
will be used for humanitarian, environmental, fishing and other
internationally-minded purposes.
But it warned this week in its
own Defence White Paper that it would gradually expand "offshore waters
defence" to include "open seas protection", adding that it would
not tolerate other countries "meddling".
In Canberra, Fairfax understands
that China's frenetic building activity has prompted the Defence Intelligence
Organisation and Office of National Assessments to adopt a more hawkish tone
since they each delivered major strategic threat assessments to the National
Security Committee of Committee (NSC) mid-last year.
Their revised strategic
assessments, due to be submitted to the NSC in coming weeks, will show how the
reclamations could enable China to greatly amplify threats of coercive force in
order to play a gate-keeping role across hotly-contested maritime areas, if
left unchecked.
What Australia should do about
the challenge is a more difficult question.
Australian military officers and
officials have discussed a need to demonstrate that they do not recognise any
12-mile territorial zone or more expansive economic zone that China may
unilaterally claim around its freshly-minted islands. But they are grappling
with the need to avoid inflaming a potential confrontation Australia's largest
trading partner.
Last week the United States
demonstrated its position with a flyover by a P-8 surveillance plane, which
carried a CNN journalist.
The voice of an Australian can be
heard over the aircraft's radio.
Senior officers and officials
have speculated that Australia could join a humanitarian or military exercise
with the United States or one of several regional partners including Japan,
Malaysia and Singapore.
Such a move has been discussed in
Washington and key capitals in the region but no proposal has yet been put to
Canberra, it is understood.
It could also dispatch naval
vessels or air force planes through a contested area on route to a routine
destination.
Officials say that any such
"demonstration" is likely to be conducted with minimal publicity, to
avoid inflaming China's reaction.
Mr Richardson, in his Sydney
address to the Royal United Services Institute, said the area of
previously-submerged atolls that China has reclaimed in the past year is
nearly four times as large as that which the five other claimant states
have achieved over several decades.
And he critiqued the
nebulous nature of China's claims which, on some readings, cover more than 80
per cent of the entire South China Sea.
"It is not constructive to
give the appearance of seeking to change facts on the ground without any
clarification of actual claims," he said.
"It is legitimate to raise
such questions and express such concerns because tensions and potential
miscalculations are not in anyone's interest." Sydney Morning Herald
No comments:
Post a Comment