The PLA Navy’s unprecedented live-fire exercise 640 kilometres off the south coast of New South Wales, quickly followed by a second such exercise closer to New Zealand, was provocative and deeply regrettable. But it does not call for an immediate aggressive Australian response, it does not show that the Australian government’s diplomacy is failing, and it certainly does not indicate that Australia is helpless as China’s military power grows.
If this exercise somehow demonstrated that the government hasn’t been tough enough on China, then what would that say about the frequent foreign naval activity in waters off China’s coast?
