A Chinese intelligence ship detected off Australia’s west coast within 50 nautical miles of a sensitive defense installation does not violate international maritime laws, Australia said on Saturday. Australia tracked the spy ship last week as it passed the Harold E. Holt naval communications station at Exmouth in Western Australia, which is used by Australian, US and allied submarines. Minister Scott Morrison on Friday said the Chinese naval ship is not in Australian territorial waters but its presence was “worrying” amid an election campaign focusing on China’s behavior in the region.
China’s threat to national security
The issue of China’s threat to national security, including its growing influence in the Pacific, was a key issue in the May 21 general election campaign. Asked Saturday whether the ship’s behavior was a “red line,” Morrison said freedom of navigation is permitted around the world and the ship did not violate the law of the sea. “The international law of the sea has not been violated,” he told reporters on the Melbourne campaign trail. But he said the issue highlights the challenges Australia faces as China “seeks to impose its will across the region”. China’s embassy in Australia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Morrison’s comments come after Defense Secretary Peter Dutton said this week he viewed the ship’s movement as “an act of aggression” because it had traveled so far south that it sought a briefing. Relations between Australia and China, key trading partners, have recently become strained over growing Chinese influence in the Solomon Islands after the tiny Pacific island nation signed a security pact with China.
Chinese naval vessels have been spotted off the north and east coasts of Australia several times in recent years. The same Chinese ship monitored Australian Navy exercises with the US military off the east coast last year. In February, China and Australia traded barbs over an incident in which Australia said one of its maritime patrol planes spotted a laser aimed at it by a People’s Liberation Army Navy vessel.
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