Commentary
Three of China’s naval ships sailed near Papua New Guinea and then as close as 150 nautical miles east of Sydney, Australia.On Feb. 21, they warned three civilian planes over the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand of impending live fire drills. This forced the New Zealand-bound planes to reroute after they had already departed Australia. The airlines included Qantas, Virgin, and Emirates.
The lack of advance notice created umbrage in Canberra and Wellington. Beijing subsequently declined to explain itself. Aussie and Kiwi officials heard about the drills from the civilian planes. Not very professional.
But dangerous brinkmanship is the modus operandi of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
A similar incident occurred over the Yellow Sea in May 2024.
Failure to respond more forcefully to the PLA’s aggression normalizes it and makes it more likely to occur again or to escalate.
At the very least, the Aussies, Kiwis, and their allies (including the United States) should have forcefully denounced the Chinese regime’s recent behavior. But Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese explained it away as in compliance with international law. “China did comply with international law and that’s important to not suggest that that wasn’t the case,” he said.
After the civilian planes had already diverted, Australia and New Zealand announced that they could not actually be sure that live fire had been used by the three warships. There’s nothing to see here. These are not the droids you’re looking for.
What’s more, the usual false equivalencies were drawn between the Chinese regime’s threatened live fire and the freedom of the sea transits of U.S. and allied navies, including through the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Taiwan Strait.
In September, for example, the New Zealand Navy conducted its own naval transit in the Strait, signaling the country’s commitment to the U.S. alliance system in Asia and a free and democratic Taiwan. The transit was conducted with the Australian Navy. It was the first such transit by New Zealand since 2017 and a possible proximate cause for the unprecedented threat of a live fire PLA Navy (PLAN) exercise in the Tasman.
The weak-kneed attempt by politicians to de-escalate through false equivalencies dates from when we all assumed that by giving equal rights under international law to the likes of communist China, they would gradually move toward democratization and free market principles. It worked with other authoritarian countries. But the friendly approach failed with China.
Now, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to cherry-pick the parts of international law that empower it while ignoring those parts, like the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, that it previously agreed to but flouts with impunity.
Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand are so afraid of provoking Beijing that they bend over backward to normalize what should never be accepted: a totalitarian and genocidal military engaged in threatening behavior just off their placid shores.
Until the CCP makes irreversible progress on human rights, it should not be accorded the same international rights and privileges enjoyed by other nations, including the freedom of the seas that, in their extremity, allow such things as live fire drills on the high seas. When the PLAN or other autocratic organs of state do such a thing, the democracies and our allies should denounce it for what it is: an obvious attempt to use brinkmanship to expand the CCP’s military power.
