Last Sunday’s incident north of Indonesia’s Natuna islands, in which two armed Chinese Coastguard ships forced an Indonesian patrol craft to release an intruding Chinese trawler, shows once again that Jakarta must confront the reality …
A key challenge in the coming years for Australia will be the PLA’s growing ability to project military power beyond what Chinese military thinkers deem to be the first and second island chains (see map …
Lately, we Australians have had plenty to say about the South China Sea. The discussants fall into two broad groups. The first group subscribes closely to the perspectives of the United States Pacific Command and …
Just under a year ago Admiral Harry Harris was the keynote speaker at the ASPI Future Surface Fleet dinner. Immaculately attired in his starched whites he warned—with a firm delivery—that China is building a ‘great …
Like its predecessors, Australia’s new Defence White Paper pays considerable attention to Southeast Asia. Its ‘Strategic Outlook’ chapter reiterates the long-held and axiomatic conventional wisdom that the geography of the archipelago to Australia’s north ‘will …