The Chinese Navy carried out an unannounced military exercise over the last month in which it encircled Australia, causing alarm amongst military experts.
China’s Navy sent a three-ship task force around Australia, including entering its exclusive economic zone, The New York Times reported. They fired live ammunition around commercial airspace, which disrupted dozens of flights, and came close to a military base where a U.S. nuclear submarine was docked.
China’s warships encircle Australia.
A flotilla of three Chinese navy ships sailed around Australia for nearly a month, moving in and out of its exclusive economic zone, conducting live-fire drills and forcing civilian flights to reroute.
China’s two warships had 144 missile… pic.twitter.com/0uu1SpvF0M
— Mike (@Doranimated) March 12, 2025
The military exercise was the furthest south the communist nation’s navy has ever gone, the report said.
Australian officials, while projecting calm to the public, were reportedly unnerved by the incident and have forced it to take a serious evaluation of its naval shortcomings.
The report noted that Australia’s navy is “the oldest and smallest it has been since World War II.”
Out of the three Chinese naval vessels that encircled the country, one was a cruiser, another a frigate, and the third a replenishment tanker. The two warships in the task force had a combined 144 vertical launch missile cells, the report said. The 10 warships Australia has have a combined capacity for 200 vertical launch missile cells.
Military said that China was showing up Australia in its own backyard and was effectively taunting them by highlighting inadequacies within their fleet.
Reuters reported that the incident has Australian officials racing to equip its army with new anti-ship missiles fired from mobile launchers and advanced targeting radars.
Proposals for the new weapons are under consideration with a decision expected to be reached by the end of the year:
Australian government officials have said that future versions of one of the contenders, Lockheed Martin’s Precision Strike Missile, were expected to have a range of up to 1,000km and could be fired from High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers. Australia has 42 HIMARS launchers on order from the United States, with launchers expected to be in service from 2026-27, according to the defense department.
Retired Australian Army Major General Mick Ryan said, “You could put a HIMARS launcher with a maritime strike missile in Sydney and it would have the potential to hit one of those ships.”
He said that mobile land-based launchers have major advantages over building expensive naval vessels.
“It’s a truck,” said Ryan. “You can park it under a tree and come out to fire it and move back again. They won’t find you.”
Australia has also ordered new long-range missiles for its navy and air force, the report said.
Ross Babbage, a former Australian government defense official, said that the procurement of the new missiles “deserves a high degree of priority.”
“We ought to be really turbo-charging this,” he added.
