Australia in the sights of China’s military machine
Leading report reveals the dangers facing Canberra amid Beijing’s massive defense spending program
It started with a “silent invasion” of the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Up to 27 fortified bases bristle with surface-to-air and anti-ship missile systems. Deepwater ports, runways, and radar arrays also dot the landscape of what were deserted shoals.
Now, they are all part of Beijing’s blueprint to turn the maritime superhighway into China’s exclusive lake. A de facto no-go area and a springboard to stop American and allied naval forces from intervening in an attack on the democratic island of Taiwan.
They might also serve as a launch pad for a hypersonic missile attack on Australia, according to the Lowy Institute. “China’s military build-up is bringing into question Australia’s relative isolation from military [risks],” the Sydney-based think tank stated this week.
“The direct strike threat to Australian territory is real and growing, but should be understood within this broader context … China’s military build-up is reshaping Asia’s security order,” the white paper pointed out in an executive summary.
Behind the news:
- The scope and scale of Beijing’s armed forces represent the largest expansion of hard power since the end of World War II in 1945.
- State-funded military spending has reportedly ballooned to at least US$700 billion annually, an American Enterprise Institute study revealed in 2024.
Sam Roggeveen, Lowy Institute
This is not alarmist … it is something Australians need to understand.
Delve deeper: “I think the growth of the People’s Liberation Army is the most important thing to happen to Australian security since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Sam Roggeveen, of the Lowy Institute, told Agence France-Presse.
Between the lines: A first-phase attack would be to sever undersea cables, use cyber coer-cion, and impose a block on maritime trade. Stage two risks escalating into strikes by DF-26 hypersonic missiles launched from Chinese-built artificial islands in the South China Sea.
Big picture: “This is not alarmist. But it is something Australians need to understand,” Roggeveen said. To put that into context, the DF-26 could hit northern Australia, while the DF-27 has a range of up to 8,000 kilometers, or deep inside the country’s interior.
Bottom line: “China’s neighbors are [facing] enormous military power on their doorsteps,” Raji Rajagopalan, a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, wrote in March.
China Factor comment: A future scenario risks rapidly spiraling out of control if Beijing decided to launch long-range manned or unmanned bombers. Deploying missiles even closer to Australia could involve threatening its economic partners in the Pacific islands.