Commercial flights were diverted between Australia and New Zealand on Friday, officials and airlines said, amid fears that Chinese naval vessels were conducting live-fire military drills in an incident some security experts called a “show of force” unusually far from China’s shores.This was no freedom of navigation display, either, but a live fire gunnery exercise. Definitely a flex. Just the thing our tip-o'-the-spear, warrior ethos, all-teeth-no-tail Nu Perfect military is supposed to be ready to react to thanks to our pivot to Asia.
The Chinese naval exercises, in international waters off Australia’s eastern coast, are legal, but they nonetheless sparked expressions of alarm from officials in Australia and New Zealand.
“It’s a wake-up call,” New Zealand Defense Minister Judith Collins said in an interview with Radio New Zealand’s “Morning Report” on Thursday. She said the Chinese exercises were legal but “unusual” and involved “the most significant and sophisticated [vessels] that we have seen this far south.”
However, it looks like we're pretty much leaving this one to the Aussies and the Kiwis. Good luck, mates!
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