Australia to Conduct Freedom of Navigation Patrols?
Rumors abound that Canberra is soon to step into a sensitive area.
A week ago we noted that fighting the Islamic State was the main focus of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s first visit to Washington. Yet the changing strategic situation in the South China Sea is not far from both nations’ minds. Turnbull stopped in Pearl Harbor on his way home for a breakfast meeting with Admiral Harry Harris, head of the American Pacific Command to talk about these issues. Harris led the USS Lassen’s Freedom of Navigation patrols in October.
Australia and the U.S. maintain the same line when it comes to territorial claims in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. As Turnbull said at a speech to the CSIS on January 18: “Australia has no claims in the South China Sea, nor do we make any judgment on the legitimacy of any of the competing claims.”
This came after 2051 words already, largely on ISIS and working with the U.S. to combat terror. Turnbull’s speech praised the U.S. and its norms and values, possibly more than earlier speeches before he was prime minister did, when a certain U.S.-skepticism popped up. He said, “But the big story – possibly the biggest story of modern times – is that the US-anchored rules-based order has delivered the greatest run of peace and prosperity this planet has ever known.”
The Australian leader went on to outline much about the importance of the South China Sea, and of Southeast Asia more generally, and made a point many must secretly be thanking an Australian prime minister for saying: “There is a lot more to the Asia-Pacific than China.” Turnbull went on to note that free trade can and should help ensure peace and stronger ties between nations, probably a politic observation to make given that China is Australia’s biggest trade partner.
While Tony Abbott, Turnbull’s predecessor, was gung-ho about all things military and security-related (national security remained one area where he rated reasonably well), the South China Sea was not an area that he gravitated towards, seemingly preferring tough talk about the Islamic State. Indeed, both Abbott and Turnbull have been very open about the opportunities presented to Australia by China’s rise.
Turnbull remains so, but he made clear from his first interview as prime minister in September that China’s actions in the South China Sea were of concern and that they were fuelling new alliance patterns, such as the growing ties between the U.S. and Vietnam.
However, according to recent Australian media reports there is a possibility that Australia may conduct its own freedom of navigation (FON) patrols. This seems to be, at least publicly, a relatively recent development. Just last week, according to the Australian Financial Review, “It (the Australian government) is reluctant to confront Beijing directly in a freedom of navigation exercise, partly because China is Australia's largest trading partner.”
Yet a story from The Australian by Greg Sheridan on January 26 suggested that Australia was gearing up for its own FON patrol, but did not yet know what form these would take. (Submarines, by nature of their stealth, are not used to send public messages, said Sheridan.)
“Sources have told The Australian that freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea were discussed by Malcolm Turnbull in his recent trip to the USA... According to sources, the Japanese have offered to participate in such an exercise in partnership with US naval vessels,” he wrote. Washington decided that it was better to avoid “unfriendly contact” between Chinese and Japanese vessels.
Australia in fact conducted a quiet freedom of navigation trip across the South China Sea in an AP-3C Orion surveillance plane on November 25, after the BBC, also in the area, picked up audio communications between the plane and the Chinese Navy. The story broke on December 15.
"We are an Australian aircraft exercising international freedom of navigation rights, in international airspace in accordance with the international civil aviation convention, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - over,” the communication apparently said.
However that flight, although confirmed by Australia’s Department of Defence, was not confirmed as an official FON exercise, and Australia has kept quiet since, despite public whisperings from sources.
An ABC story quoted a China analyst at the Institute of China-American studies as saying that China would see any exercise as “taking sides” and, “If Australia is sending a craft to test freedom of navigation, it will be read by China as: ‘Are you really thinking that China has created trouble for freedom of navigation? If not, then why [conduct the flight] at this time?’
Sheridan says that the RAAF plane event of November earned appreciation in Washington, but whether Australia embarks on a larger and intentional FON exercise alone, or in tandem with the U.S. has yet to be made public.