Australia should enlist partners in the Quad to help address China’s increasingly assertive naval behaviour in the Indo-Pacific.
The Quad may be slow in moving into security roles, but one militarily useful function that it has adopted is maritime domain awareness—knowing what is going on at sea. Quad members, which also include Japan and the United States, can cooperate in monitoring Chinese naval movements.
On 19 February, three Chinese warships were identified sailing 277km east of Sydney before engaging in live fire drills in the Tasman Sea on 21 February.
The incident created alarm in the region—including in Cook Islands, which has become closer to Beijing recently—because of the risk it posed to airline traffic over the area. It also raised concerns around transparency, as China provided little notice.
While China’s actions didn’t violate international law, they demonstrated a willingness to engage in risky behaviour. Moreover, they came in the wake of similarly assertive actions, including China’s interception of an Australian surveillance jet engaging in routine flights in international air space above the South China Sea.
Clearly, China is sending a message that it can operate close to Australia and New Zealand, just as the two Pacific powers operate in the South China Sea. Last year, the two countries, along with Japan, sent ships through the Taiwan Strait. The difference is that those passages were conducted without engaging in unsafe behaviour.
Such behaviour from China is becoming more common. The Australian Department of Defence has called on all militaries to operate transparently and with safety and professionalism. This is to be expected, but perhaps more is needed as China’s navy expands and its operations in the Indo-Pacific become more routine.
There can be little doubt that once China’s latest aircraft carriers become fully operational, they will engage in patrols in the South Pacific. China’s aircraft carrier program is proceeding at pace, with the 70,000-ton Shandong apparently now fully operational, with two more—the 80,000-ton Fujian and another, even larger unnamed carrier—on the way.
A more serious policy issue is how countries in the region should respond to China’s expanding naval presence in the Indo-Pacific. Defence has said that it is monitoring the movement of the Chinese ships as long as they are ‘in the vicinity of Australia’s maritime approaches.’ The department is also coordinating with the New Zealand Defence Force.
This is an understandable response, but what happens in the coming years when there are many more Chinese warships operating across the Indo-Pacific?
It would be foolish to imagine that the Chinese navy’s patrol along the east coast of Australia is a one-off incident. Australia, New Zealand and their strategic partners should not be under any such impression. Moreover, China has repeatedly demonstrated that it is not a responsible power that respects either international law or basic, common-sensical behaviour.
Australia needs to position itself to deal with China’s irresponsible behaviour in the coming years, and it cannot do so alone or with only New Zealand. China’s outing in Australia’s exclusive economic zone should prompt like-minded and capable partners to come together to track China’s naval movements in the Indo-Pacific.
Australia should engage with the Quad—comprising Australia, Japan, India and the US—to monitor China’s naval movements in the Indo-Pacific.
The Quad has been reluctant to engage in actual security cooperation, presumably because India is dragging its feet. But this kind of cooperation could be seen to fall within the scope of maritime domain awareness, which is part of the Quad agenda. Moreover, such cooperation can be structured in a manner that is much less intrusive than interoperating military forces, as it could be limited to information-sharing on surveillance and monitoring of Chinese naval activities.
Such cooperative and focused activities around marine domain awareness could also allow Quad partners to pool their limited resources in a much more coordinated manner. This would provide them with visibility over the entire region rather than just their littoral waters.
Japan, Australia and India are limited in their capacity to monitor the seas much beyond their shores. But coordination would help all four Quad countries get a better grasp of Chinese naval activities: The US could help to monitor areas that cannot be monitored by the other three, such as southern Indian Ocean or much of the Pacific. Quad countries should accept that all of them cannot be involved in every maritime theatre in the Indo-Pacific. Burden-sharing is necessary to securing the region. The Quad is not there yet, but that is where it should be heading.
A unified Quad focus would allow other countries in the region to join these activities. South Korea would be the immediate contender, but some Southeast Asian powers might also step in. This would also give the Quad a greater security role, without infringing on India’s well-known fears of military forces operating together (outside of exercises or small-scale operations such as humanitarian relief or counter-piracy).
China’s naval activities will undoubtedly expand in the coming years. Australia and its partners must develop the means to monitor such expansion instead of simply complaining about it.
