Australia’s rivalry with China in the Pacific will heave into view off the coast of Tonga today when super-sized naval ships jostle to deliver loads of aid to the tsunami-damaged island nation.
HMAS Adelaide was deployed to the tiny nation within days of the January disaster for an urgent humanitarian mission that has been hampered by a COVID outbreak and power failures on board.
Last month the ABC revealed HMAS Adelaide, one of the Royal Australian Navy’s two Landing Helicopter Docks (LHDs), had been crippled by a total blackout which also took out emergency back-up electric supplies.
Before arriving in the previously COVID-free nation of Tonga, the Defence Department confirmed an outbreak of the virus had also been detected on board HMAS Adelaide which had planned to use contact-less delivery to offload supplies.
On Tuesday two Chinese ships from the People’s Liberation Army Southern Theatre Command are also scheduled to arrive in Tonga where they have been granted clearance to offload supplies for the next three days.
At the end of January China’s Ministry of National Defence announced the Type 071 amphibious dock landing ship Wuzhishan and the Type 901 comprehensive supply ship Chaganhu would be dispatched to tsunami devastated Tonga on a “goodwill mission”.
Publicly the Australian government and military insists the rush to get aid to Tonga is not a contest, but privately officials acknowledge the situation has highlighted the strategic tussle for influence in the region.
Asked about the imminent arrival of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy, the Australian Defence Force’s Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant General Greg Bilton rejected suggestions it was a competition.
“No, I don’t believe there is, the Tongan government needs the support and a whole raft of nations have provided a pretty substantial range of support to the country," he said.
“I think it has been well coordinated and we are meeting Tongan requirements.
On Thursday HMAS Adelaide’s sister ship HMAS Canberra is due to deploy to the Pacific nation to continue Australia’s Tongan relief mission.
Two years ago, officials raised formal concerns after a Chinese plane held up a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft trying to deliver humanitarian supplies to Vanuatu following a deadly cyclone.
"We have raised our concerns with officials in Vanuatu and in appropriate places with the Chinese government. I don't know whether it was deliberate or not," Foreign Minister Marise Payne told the ABC in 2020.
One fifth of HMAS Adelaide's crew has caught COVID-19 during Tongan mission
Defence has confirmed that a total of 128 members of HMAS Adelaide’s total crew has now tested positive to COVID-19 since leaving Australia, equating to one fifth of the warship’s total company.
Australian officials are confident HMAS Adelaide’s arrival is not responsible for a COVID-19 outbreak that's recently taken hold on the Pacific Island, but genomic testing is being undertaken to rule out any link.
Lieutenant General Bilton said the 630 crew members on board HMAS Adelaide were being regularly tested.
“We've had a total of 128 cases throughout the deployment to date, obviously many have recovered and are back to work but we still have this number of 49 (active)," he said.
“There was no interaction with any Tongan people and then the Tongan protocol is to have the stores sprayed and left for 72 hours to enable any latent virus that might be on the material that has been put on the shore to be eradicated with disinfectant.”
The Royal Australian Navy is now also reviewing the maintenance regime on its largest warship to see what may have caused the two crippling power outages last month.
Defence confirmed the blackouts lasted several hours but insists the Landing Helicopter Dock is now fully functional.
Lieutenant General Bilton said a forensic investigation using civilian specialists was underway.
“We will look back at the maintenance of the regime and see if we missed anything and you're right the redundancy system also failed when it was supposed to kick in during those two periods," he said.
“But the crew's response was highly effective, we didn't get the specialist on board for quite some time and they were able to restore it pretty rapidly really.”
